5.16.2004

The Job Market - About to Improve, or What?

"The Job Market Is Getting Ready to Roar
We may soon be saying 'goodbye and good riddance' to the jobless recovery. Here's what to expect, and how to prepare for it.
By Anne Fisher
I know, I know - it's always wise to take experts' economic predictions with a grain (make that a lump) of salt. Still, for the first time since 2001, a broad consensus of researchers and pollsters agrees: By the end of 2004, we'll be looking at a big upswing in the job market. For example, consider a new survey of executive recruiters by ExecuNet (http://www.execunet.com): 72% of the headhunters polled believe the job market will get a lot brighter within six months, and 47% say they see it happening within three. Gains may take a while to show up in the official unemployment figures, though. "The jobless rate has been falling for the past four months, but those numbers don't include people who have gotten discouraged and stopped looking for work," says Richard Bayer, Ph.D., chief operating officer of the Five O'Clock Club (http://www.fiveoclockclub.com). "As the economy produces more jobs, those people will reenter the race, so it may appear that unemployment is dropping more slowly." And companies will continue to downsize in some areas even as they add jobs in others, he notes. The long-awaited job boom may be particularly welcome for job seekers age 55 and over. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported recently that older workers take, on average, four weeks longer to find a new job than those under 55. "Age discrimination has been a major problem," says Bayer. "But the labor shortage predicted for the next few years will mean that disqualifying people for jobs because of their age will be, for employers, a luxury of the past." Let's hope so. Bayer also foresees plenty of turnover among the currently employed. "This isn't your grandfather's labor market. No one works for the same company for 50 years anymore," he says. "Employers should realize that they normally won't get more than four years' service from people. Especially in cases where management has abused its power with a be-glad-you-have-a-job mentality, employees are unhappy and will leave when they can." That must be why 45% of executives in a poll by search firm Christian & Timbers (http://www.ctnet.com/default.html) cited "ability to attract and retain the best talent" as the No. 1 trait that senior managers need now. By contrast, "ability to deliver a strong P& L statement" was rated tops by only 7%. Wow. So how can you position yourself to take advantage of all this? First of all, keep your ear to the ground for new opportunities, whether they're outside or inside your current company. "Employers really want employees to move around within the company, and to be responsible for seeking out opportunities in-house," says Bayer. "This helps reduce layoffs, when some departments shrink while others are growing.... Being proactive is a key to saving your job." "

<Note from JobFairy.com: Recruiters have been optimistic too many times before, and too early. Us Fairies have made the same mistakes ourselves. It will take an awful lot of job creation just to get us back to where we were before, let alone make any gains. And I see more terrorist acts in the future, not to mention corporate scandals yet to be uncovered for which the little guy will pay by their jobs being eliminated, and the Big Cheeses will not. So there will be gains in the job market, but probably not soon, and likely not enough.>

"Understanding the Meaning Behind the Statistics

By Eric Zakarin
1st Vice President UBS Financial Services
Financial Advisor to the CWA Savings and Retirement Trust

While President Bush and his team of economic cheerleaders are pronouncing victory over one of the longest and deepest employment contractions since the Great Depression, American workers find little to cheer about. Over the longer term, the past two years have been among the worst on record for payroll employment growth, and the lack of job creation is leading many to exit the labor market and cutting into the hours of work of those who remain employed. The persistence of these weak demand conditions have led to stagnant hourly and weekly wage trends that are falling behind inflation and thus eroding the living standards of working families. The fact that the labor market remains this weak more than two years into a recovery highlights the failure of economic policy to reach those sectors of the economy, specifically the job market, that matter most to working families. A closer look at the numbers paints a stark contrast to the optimistic spin from the White House. According to last weeks report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation's payrolls grew by only 1,000 jobs last month, a significant decline from recent gains over the past five months. Unemployment fell from 5.9% in November to 5.7% in December, but this drop was wholly due to a contraction in the labor force, which declined by 309,000. Workers, frustrated with the lack of good jobs available, simply gave up looking. That left the labor force participation rate at 66%, the lowest it has been since December 1991. The unemployment rate for the year 2003 was 6.0%, the highest annual jobless rate since 1994. Payrolls fell last year by 331,000 (-0.3%) and by 1.5 million (-1.1%) in 2002. The last time payrolls declined for two consecutive years was in 1944-45. The miniscule growth in the December payrolls was the smallest gain since firms began gaining net jobs five months ago. Since August, payrolls have expanded at an average rate of 56,000 per month, far below the 150,000 jobs per month that most economists agree is required to provide opportunities for job seekers. In historical terms, this is very weak job growth for the current stage of recovery, more than two years after an expansion began in November 2001. This far into the last recovery, an average of over 200,000 jobs were being added per month. The labor force declines have been particularly sharp for minorities, especially since the recovery began in November 2001. Since then, the overall drop in labor force participation has been 0.7 percentage points overall, and the same number for whites. But for African-Americans and Hispanics, the drop has been 1.4 and 1.6 percentage points, respectively. The employment rate for adult black women dropped to 56.9%, the lowest rate since April 1996, and 2.1 percentage points below the rate when the recovery began. While the recession was fairly broad-based in terms of which groups were affected, the recovery has been much harder on minorities. The persistence of weak job growth and high unemployment (relative to the 4% unemployment rate achieved in 2000) has slowed the growth of wages. On a year-over-year basis, wages grew 2%, about the rate of inflation. But over the fourth quarter, they grew at an annual rate of 1%, leading to diminished buying power among many in the workforce. Other weak sectors include financial activities, which contracted for the third straight month, and information services, which grew by only 5,000 jobs and remain 83,000 jobs below last December's employment level. (The comments above are solely the opinion of Eric Zakarin and do not reflect those of UBS Financial Services)"

<Note from JobFairy.com: From what I hear from recruiters, April was (and I quote) "brutal", despite what the official employment numbers said. However, most of the recruiters that I have been talking to say that March was good here in Colorado and May is on track to be even better than March was. They see a bright horizon. However, it's still going to be tough going. MCI just announced that they're laying off 7,500 people, and they've got a huge presence here in Denver. Well, probably not anymore. I also was chatting with one of my buddies over at Unemployment, and she was shocked at the way things are going here in Colorado. She says it's still really bad. She's right. Considering how hostile the employment climate has been over the past couple years, I am surprised to see the two candidates as even in the polls as they are. One other observation - employers are getting caught short on budgeting when they're trying to fill openings. They specified much lower bill rates when things were bad. Now that the jobs are starting to come back, employers that won't pay market price are waiting a long time to fill positions and are getting a poor array of candidates from which to pick. Plus, as soon as the market picks back up a little more, even these obtained-at-the-bottom-of-the-cycle workers are dumping them for greener pastures "for a, uh, more competitive financial opportunity" (actual quote from a recruiter as to why a particular job opening had happened and why my possible predecessor had left). So this is a good sign - it's still an employer's market, but not for long. If we can just get someone in office to take job creation seriously (none of us Fairies really care who at this point), life just might go back to normal.>

Yes, we're doing great! Or, no, we're not! These two articles highlight the still uneven nature of the recovery and why things are still rocky. Here are some charts from CNN about current unemployment figures and job loss over various administrations. Update on 5/13: Jobless Claims Up More Than Expected

The article: "Few Signs Of Recovery Greet Workers. By almost all measures, a U.S. economy that has treaded water since the 2001 recession is finally getting into the swim. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 25 percent in 2003. The economy exploded at an 8.2 percent annualized growth rate between July and September. Statistics indicate manufacturing production is expanding at rates not seen in two decades. But after so much good news, the Labor Department's recent report that employers added a scant 1,000 jobs in December came as a shock -- even a cold slap -- to most economic forecasters. The unemployment rate did dip, to 5.7 percent from 5.9 percent in November, but only because 309,000 jobless Americans stopped looking for work and left the labor force. As the graphs point out, President Bush will be the first president to preside over a net loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover."

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Do you get fired frequently? Here's a just-about-to-be-fired checklist for just such occasions.

"Shark Tank: And what would you say is your weak point?

Manager asks this techie pilot fish to sit in on the interview of an applicant for a new technician position. And what an applicant. "The candidate is a rather large person with short-cropped hair, who is wearing a suit that appears to be too tight," fish reports. "He's sitting ramrod straight with his resume in front of him and arms by his sides. But when fish and the manager walk into the room, he leaps to his feet and remains standing until the manager invites him to sit down. Fish looks at the resume. "Oh, I see you just got out of the Marines, where you've been for the last 20 years," he says. "SIR! YES SIR!" the job candidate barks. "I have been the IT person in the Marines for 10 years!" While the manager climbs back into her chair, fish asks, "Uh, what did you do?" "Sir! I would jump out of a plane to our new location and run the cabling for our systems!" says candidate. "Uh, OK," says fish. "Let's go through a few scenarios. We have a unique situation where a lot of engineering users can be rather difficult to work with, since they feel they are very knowledgeable. How do you handle conflict when an engineer is being rather difficult?" Candidate turns, leans down and, with an intimidating glare and an icy voice, says, "I usually do not have problems getting people to see things my way." And that's it for the interview. "The manager quickly asks some fluff questions and gets HR to show the candidate out," says fish. "I thought it would be fun to hire him -- just to turn him loose on a few of our more difficult users.""

<Note from JobFairy.com: They should have hired him... if only for the hilarity that would ensue once he got down to business. You know, a couple of us Fairies are ex-military, and we would have paid good money to see something like this.>

Scam Du Jour - Go to the Super Bowl with the POPE!!!!! (comments in bold from jobfairy.com)

[Victim's Name Here],

Your resume caught my attention as I was scanning the employer section of monster.com. No doubt you will have a number of opportunities with traditional companies. <And an unending series of annoying unsolicited emails from a**holes like you.>

Regardless I thought that you might be interested in talking with me. I represent a successful, fifteen-year old high technology food-science company traded on the NASDAQ. <Where does it say in my resume that I ever worked in a food-science company or in a similar field? What the heck is the actual position title and location of the job? Why can't you actually name the company?>

I have recently returned from the Philippines where I helped open the Asian market. <Was that right after you helped Al Gore invent the Internet?> I am excited to be back in Chicago and in the process of opening various cities in the US. My partner and I are looking for a self-starter who has leadership ability to expand business in your area. The few key leaders in the US will have business that will begin locally, grow throughout the country and reach internationally. Given your history of success and leadership ability, this would certainly be an impressive financial opportunity. The compensation package allows you to go beyond traditional corporate commission schedules and take advantage of a generous bonus program. <Have I ever worked on commission before? Since the answer to that is NO, what the heck makes you think that I want to start now?>

The company we represent has been been written up both in Success and International Business Magazine. In 1998 it was recognized as a partner in humanitarian ventures by the foundation established by Pope John Paul II. In the 1999-2000 season their products helped the Rams win the Superbowl. <The Pope helped the Rams win the Super Bowl? WTF??? How does this relate to a career in IT - BTW, the only kind of career that I have any interest in?>

[Victim's Name Here], I realize this differs from your past experience. <No s***, Sherlock! I'll bet they waived all the entrance exams to Mensa for you just 'cuz yer so brite.> However, a number of people with similiar backgrounds have found great success. If you have an entrepreneurial attitude, I strongly suggest giving a call. You have nothing to lose and absolutely everything to gain. <I can already waste time on losers without having to run up my long distance phone bill for 20 minutes or more.>

Due to time constraints, please do not reply to my email. <Of course I can't. It's sent through the monster.com email routing, so your email address is never revealed. Makes it really easy for scammers like you to evade any further scrutiny, doesn't it? Lucky you.> In order for us to talk in greater detail, I have set up a 20 minute recorded call @ 212.XXX.XXXX. It is my hopes <your hopes? Like, was you hopin' or what?> this will provide your due diligence <no, due diligence is done on sites like hoovers.com and f'dcompany.com - and google.com, if you'd provide enough information to check you out, but you won't> as it will feature an overview of the business as well as a chance to hear from some of the leaders you would work closely with. You can call at your convenience as it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After the recording, leave a message after the beep or give a call to my office @ 847.XXX.XXXX. <Yeah... just the way the big boys do it... Just like when you want to work for Qwest, HP, Sun, Microsoft, or any other *real* company. I like the way you've left me an 800# too. Oh, no, you didn't. Why is the 20 minute recorded call based out of Manhattan, New York, when the office is located in the Chicago/Springfield Illinois area? Specifically, we're talking the cities of Des Plaines, Elgin, and Waukegan. Stuff like this just doesn't add up.>

After listening to the recorded call, I hope to hear from you in the days ahead and my partner and I we will talk specifics with you. <OK, how about never - does never work for you? And how about talking specifics NOW - like when you're first trying to establish credibility? This email is long on evoking brand names and short on details. Go bother somebody else.>

All the best, Michael Whelan 212.XXX.XXXX/ 24/7 (give yourself 20min.) <Yeah, 20 minutes to read about this scam and forget about calling them.>