Several new surveys show or predict dips in the job market in the United States. But the losses seems nowhere near as bad as the ugly events in the U.S. economy – a housing crash, credit crunch, weakening dollar and spiraling inflation – would seem to indicate.
The Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index fell in June, continuing a downtrend that started in July 2007 and indicating further U.S. job losses to come. The index fell by 0.6 percent month to month, to 111.9. Compared to July 2007, the index is down by 8 percent. “Most leading indicators of employment point to an even sharper deterioration in the labor market in the months ahead,” said Gad Levanon, The Conference Board’s senior economist. Total non-farm employment peaked in December 2007 and has fallen each month since then, for a total U.S. job loss of 438,000. The number of people working part-time who wished to work full-time meanwhile rose by 750,000. Most of the decline in jobs has been in construction, manufacturing, trade and truck transportation.
Monster’s Employment Index dropped slightly in June, by three points, to 163. Compared to the year-earlier figure, it was down by 23 points. The company attributed the drop to a “mild seasonal lull in U.S. online recruitment activity as the springtime recruitment period winds down.”
Finance / insurance and real estate saw the biggest declines, while health care, management and public administration continued strong and manufacturing and retail trade edged up. Online job availability fell month to month in eight of nine U.S. Census Bureau regions, Monster said, and in 33 of the 50 states and 24 of the top 28 major metro markets. Only four markets, all in the Midwest, held steady month to month: Cincinnati, Detroit, Kansas City and Pittsburgh.
Things will continue to slow a bit, according to CareerBuilder’s recently released job outlook for the third quarter of 2008. The Q3 2008 Job Forecast, released in association with USA Today, predicted a “continued, gradual downshift in job creation as businesses grapple with the effects of subpar economic growth, escalating oil prices, the credit collapse and timid consumer spending.”
Based on a survey of 2,922 hiring managers and HR pros and 7,960 workers in companies in the private sector, the study reported that nearly a quarter of employers planned to add permanent, full-time employees during the third quarter, down slightly from the second quarter. Thirty-four percent of employers said they’ve decreased hiring compared to last year, although 19 percent said they expect the economy to improve in the second half of 2008 and 32 percent predicted improvement in the first half of 2009.
The employment picture also appears to be softening for higher-paid execs, though many job-seekers in that category remain upbeat, according a survey by TheLadders.com, an employment site that specializes in $100,000-plus jobs. The company’s Quarterly Executive Job Market Trends Report for Q208 surveyed job-seekers in 20 major cities in the U.S. and found that although 71 percent noticed a slowdown in interview opportunities during the second quarter, 58 percent described availability of high-end jobs as stable and 59 percent expected to find a new job within six months.
The company’s Quarterly Executive Job Market Trends Report said that while hiring in the financial and consumer discretionary sectors has slowed, high-paid slots in technology, health care and defense were picking up.
Mark Cenedella, president and CEO of TheLadders.com, said that its employment site had 12,000 more postings in the first quarter of 2008 than it did in the same quarter the previous year. The best conditions were reported in San Francisco, San Diego, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Boston.
