So much fanfare over the July Jobs Numbers. Here’s what recruiters need to know.

by AdvertisingHuman ResourcesRecruitment Advertising

 

It was the first Friday in August. The time slowly inching its way to 8:30 am. It’s only a few agonizing minutes until the jobs number was to be revealed just as it is the first Friday of every month.

The experts had weighed in with their forecast and were bracing the nation for a disappointing number – having predicted 258,000 jobs. This was a precipitous drop from the 372,000 jobs created in July.

A decline in the jobs created made total sense to SCG.  We have closely tracked layoffs for select industries over the past nine years. Those layoffs have been increasing every month over the past 6 months. Those eventually should be reflected in the unemployment rate. Right?

But then, the Bureau of Labor Statistics threw us all a huge curve. They announced the number for jobs created was over double that the experts had anticipated. It came in at an unbelievable 528,000. That’s more than twice the initial projection.  With 3.5% unemployment.

 

What goes into the Bureau’s calculations?

The report is based on two separate surveys.

The Establishment Survey gathers information from 145,000 nonfarm businesses and government agencies for some 697,000 work sites and about one-third of all payroll workers.

This data estimates the number of people on payrolls in the U.S. economy, the average number of hours they worked weekly, and their average hourly earnings, along with several versions of the unemployment rate.

 

The Household Survey is based on monthly interviews of 60,000 households by the Census Bureau. The participants provide their employment status during the week including the 12th day of the month. The BLS measures unemployment by dividing the total number of unemployed people looking for a job by the total number of individuals in the labor force.

 

Here is the official report based on the July data.

 

As impressive as that number is, we cannot sustain 500,000+ new jobs per month with the 3.5% unemployment. Just not enough talent. That is made even more difficult with the nation’s continually shrinking Employment Participation Rate (the percentage of individuals who are working or actively looking for work).

 

Why is this report essential to recruiters?

SCG sees this information as vital insight into the competitiveness of the recruitment landscape. As the market tightens, recruiters face the need for increased budgets and use of invasive strategies to reach the more plentiful – but less persuadable – passive candidates.

 

For a deeper dive…

Open the July Data link above and scroll to the bottom. You will find access to about 25 in-depth reports.

SCG Advertising + Public Relations is a woman-owned, full-service advertising agency headquartered in New Jersey with expertise in recruitment advertising. If you need assistance, contact your Account Manager or visit our website at: SCGADV.COM

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Manufacturing Employment. A short history.

by Human ResourcesRecruitment Advertising

There was a time – actually, spanning many decades – when manufacturing led the growth of the world’s largest economy. Back in 1920 approximately 40% of the jobs in the United States were in manufacturing and other blue-collar fields. Today, that figure is only about…wait for it…20%. Quite a fall.

Equally astounding is the fact that manufacturing as a share of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has dwindled from 27% to 12%. It’s no wonder there have been so many layoffs in manufacturing.

What goes up must go down.

Manufacturing employment reached its zenith in June 1979 with 19.6 million jobs. But by June 2019 that had dropped to only 12.8 million – 35% from the peak hit 40 years ago.

Why were there so many job losses?

The reality is that the United States was slowly moving to service-related industries.    Under those circumstances corporations found it more appealing to ship the manufacturing overseas where it was cheaper. Think what impact there was on manufacturing jobs in America when Chinese imports quadrupled from 2001 and 2004.

Also, manufacturing as an industry found they could keep their production up as they became more and more automated. Of course, this meant fewer workers were needed.

40 years of job losses.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the 40-year period from 1979 to 2019 when job losses were steady and as dramatic as the job gains were in the prior 40 years. In 1979 manufacturing captured 22% of the nation’s job market. By 2019 that percentage dropped to only 9 percent. (Yikes!)

During the period 1979 to 2019 manufacturing lost 13% of the total nonfarm job market. Fortunately, those in the job market had adjusted their skills along with the job market (not surprising) and the job gains in the service-providing industries filled the void left by manufacturing.

Manufacturing jobs during the pandemic.

So, how did the pandemic affect manufacturing? Not bad. In comparing February/March 2020 to 2022 employment dropped from only a smidgen from  12,717,000 to 12,657,000. Unemployment fell dramatically from 4.1% to 3.1%. but Job Openings more than doubled at 389,000 to 802,000.

What are the predictions for the future?

Bureau of Labor Statistics is predicting mild employment growth in the manufacturing sector. Only about a 5% increase in manufacturing employment in the decade stretching from 2020 to 2030.

It will be interesting to see how accurate that prediction will be. Of course, in the same table, the BLS is showing a small drop in employment in the Federal government. I’ll believe that when I see it. So, we’ll see how the predication for manufacturing plays out.

Educational Services Jobs

A Report Card on Educational Services Jobs

by AdvertisingEducationRecruitment Advertising

Educational Section Jobs

The nation was waiting in anticipation of great numbers when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest jobs report on Friday, April 2. However, the announcement that total non-farm payroll employment rose by 916,000 in March exceeded even the most optimistic experts.  The public and private education sector was one of the big job creation winners for Educational Services Jobs in March as in-person learning begins to spread across the nation.

Here are the growth numbers in the March 2021 report.

 

Local government education        76,000

State government education        50,000

Private education                          64,000

 

Compare those numbers with the losses since February 2020 in the following:

Local government education        -594,000

State government education         -270,000

Private education                          -310,000

 

Let’s take a deeper look at the Educational Services jobs sector (NAICS 611) of the economy. This includes elementary and secondary schools, junior colleges, colleges/universities and business school and computer training, technical and trade school, and educational support services.

 

Month                                           Employees (In thousands)

March 2019                                      3722.1

March 2020                                      3696.3

March 2021                                      3469.0

 

Month                                            Unemployment Rate

March 2019                                      2.8%

March 2020                                      4.4%

March 2021                                      4.1%

 

With all of these promising numbers being reported, the Educational Services job market is undoubtedly beginning to heat up. The competition for top talent is certainly tightening. If you are recruiting in this sector, are you ready to face the competition? To start the conversation, e-mail Mike Mangan mmangan@scgadv.com or contact your Account Executive at (973) 992-7800.

 

 

Here’s Why Recruiting Is A Growing Challenge

by AdvertisingHuman ResourcesRecruitment Advertising

Business results

The numbers are undeniable. The economy is booming but so is the level of difficulty in finding top talent. Recruiting talent is definitely a growing challenge.  If you look carefully at the data gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics you can see why.

Just take a look at some of these numbers generated monthly by JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey). No wonder Talent Acquisition professionals are unsure where their next hire can be found.

  • At 0.9 persons per job opening, the number of job openings has exceeded the number of unemployed persons for 21 consecutive months prior to November 2019.
  • Job openings have exceeded hires from 2015 to the present.
  • The unemployment rate has plunged from 9.8% in January of 2010 to 3.5% in December of 2019
  • Quits have exceeded layoffs and discharges since July 2011.
  • The quit rate has grown consistently from less than 1% in 2009 to short of 2.5% in 2019
  • Job openings nationwide have shown an increase from 2,731,000 in January 2009 to 7,625,000 in January 2019. Whew!
  • The gap between quits and layoffs/discharges continues to increase.
  • The industries with the greatest percentage of job openings are Leisure/Hospitality and Health Care/Social Assistance.

Want to see numbers that are a little closer to home? JOLTS is working on State Estimates. They can be found on the BLS website and show everything from Job Openings to Hires to Quits to Layoffs and Discharges and total separations. The data is available from February 2001 to June 2019.

Here’s the good news…all of these numbers – and more – are updated monthly and can be downloaded free of charge on the BLS.gov site and can help with recruiting.

 

Source: The Bureau of Labor Statistics/JOLTS