Employment Market, About to Change

Workers eager to job hunt as morale plunges article name, according to a USA Today article, by Laura Petrecca. If you get the opportunity to read the article, please do.

The article, along with other recent economic signs Jobs Forecast, 2011 and Good News on the Job Market Frontier, made me really start to believe the viscous cycle of an Employer Centered Job Market is about to change to an Employee Centered Job Market, even faster than I had previously thought. Ms. Petrecca, in her article, made the following observations supported by some interesting statistics:

Employee loyalty is at a three-year low, but many employers are precariously unaware of the morale meltdown, according to a study out today.

The APA survey, conducted by Harris Interactive between 01/31/11 – 08/8/11, concluded the following information, based on employee responses, from the survey:

36% Experienced work stress regularly
49% Low salary has a significant impact on their stress level at work
43% Lack of opportunities for growth and advancement
43% Heavy workload
40% Unrealistic job expectations (assume on the part of superiors regarding direct reports)
39% Long hours
43% Received adequate non-monetary rewards and recognition for their contributions at work
57% Reported being satisfied with their employer’s work-life practices
52% Felt valued on the job
67% Felt motivated to do their best at work

It is clear that moral isn’t what it should be, what may not not clear, from the survey, is whether employees have stayed with their employers because they feared long term unemployment, especially considering that most of the 99ers are over the age of 50.

One could infer from the statistics above that many employers may not have been playing nicely with the employees that supported them during these recent tough economic years. Especially considering that 32% of the employees surveyed intend to seek employment elsewhere within the next year.

20110322 February 2011 Mass Layoff Statistics

In February 2011 there were 1,421 Mass Layoff Events involving 130,818 employees. A Mass Layoff Event is classified as a single employer releasing 50 or more employees to their destiny. These events decreased from January 2011 by 113 with new unemployment claims decreasing by almost 18,981.

Total Unemployment rate decreased by 0.1% from January to 8.9%. That equates to a little less than one out of every 11 people in the labor force is currently seeking employment. That does not even include the underemployed (those individuals who have had to take jobs below their capabilities for economic reasons) which ranges at approximately 6-7% (another 12.5M people) and it increases competition to one in eight people seeking employment.

With so much information collected by Federal and State agencies, reported in so many places, how can the average job seeker put it all together to determine what steps they need to take in order to get back to work or move to a better employment situation. The JOLT report along with the Current Population Survey PDF Download offers a little guidance but does not tell people which steps are most effective.

Having attempted to contact all of the Senators on the committee, the BLS directly, and the Secretary of Labor last year to have questions added to and reported on regarding which are the most successful avenues. With little or no response, the later being over 80%, if you would like to see more of this kind of information, contact the HELP Committee directly. And with all the help I received from the HELP committee, I found their acronym to be useless. HELP stands for Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. REAL Helpful!.

You may have to send letters as their website only allows you to contact your Senators.

Employment Situation

2011, Mar 4, Bureau of Labor Statistics; http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Unemployment by Education

	Feb 2010	Oct 2010	Nov 2010	Dec 2010	Jan 2011	Feb 2011
Less than a high school diploma
Civilian labor force	11,561	11,800	11,803	11,758	11,383	11,317
Unemployed	1,789	1,805	1,848	1,795	1,613	1,568
Unemployment rate	15.5	15.3	15.7	15.3	14.2	13.9
High school graduates, no college*
Civilian labor force	38,639	38,051	37,824	38,203	37,513	37,525
Unemployed	4,072	3,826	3,789	3,738	3,541	3,560
Unemployment rate	10.5	10.1	10.0	9.8	9.4	9.5
Some college or associate degree
Civilian labor force	36,594	37,120	37,037	36,809	36,841	36,784
Unemployed	2,889	3,148	3,205	2,988	2,963	2,865
Unemployment rate	7.9	8.5	8.7	8.1	8.0	7.8
Bachelor’s degree and higher**
Civilian labor force	45,677	46,132	46,322	46,312	46,263	46,591
Unemployed	2,241	2,161	2,370	2,217	1,941	2,003
Unemployment rate	4.9	4.7	5.1	4.8	4.2	4.3

* high school diploma or equivalent
** bachelor’s, master’s, professional, and doctoral degrees

Employment Statistics
There was an increase of 192,000 Non-farming jobs in February 2011, the majority of which were in the following sectors:

Industry	Feb 2011
Manufacturing	+33,000
Construction	+33,000
Services	+47,000
Health care	+34,000
Transportation/Warehousing	+22,000

Current Employment Numbers (in thousands)

	Feb. 2010	Oct. 2010	Nov. 2010	Dec. 2010	Jan. 2011	Feb. 2011
Employment Status
Civilian Non-Institutional Population	236,998	238,530	238,715	238,889	238,704	238,851
Civilian Labor Force	153,558	153,960	153,950	153,690	153,186	153,246
Not In Labor Force	83,440	84,570	84,765	85,199	85,518	85,605
Employed	138,698	139,084	138,909	139,206	139,323	139,573
Employment-Population Ratio	58.5%	58.3%	58.2%	58.3%	58.4%	58.4%
Unemployed*	14,860	14,876	15,041	14,485	13,863	13,673
Unemployment Rate	9.7%	9.7%	9.8%	9.4%	9.0%	8.9%
Under Employed**						8,300
Under Employed Rate						5.4%
Marginally Attached to Labor Force***						2,700
Marginally Attached Rate						1.8%

*The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was 6.0 million and accounted for 43.9 percent of the unemployed. (

** Under Employed is defined as the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons due to their hours being cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

***Marginally Attached to Labor Force workers are defined as individuals who wanted employment, were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months are not counted in the labor force because they did not actively search for work in the four weeks preceding the survey (1.0 million discouraged workers, 1.7 million persons had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey).

Jobs: Advertised vs. Real Number of Hires

More people get hired than there are advertised positons

The best way to define the unadvertised job market is that it is unpublished. Meaning that no job was posted in a newspaper, online (company’s website or job board), or registered with workforce or a head hunter. Unfortunately, the survey doesn’t include exactly the mix of people who were hired into advertised or unadvertised positions it only tells how many positions were advertised and how many people were hired. But you get the idea that at least 34.49% of the people hired were into undadvertised jobs.

If it is undadvertised, then how do you tap into the market? Networking.

Who do you know?
Friends and family are great, but often then don’t have a clue as to what you have done. They only know what title you held. That doesn’t give them an understanding of what you are capable of. Develop a list of skills and results based examples of your use of those skills to communicate what you bring to the table of a new organization. For more information on how to develop your own list check out this post. Marketing Material Development.

Fastest Growing Occupations

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics approximately 1 in 6 people, in the labor force, are either looking for work or better work. This does not include all of the people who are no longer in the work force because they have “given up” or have “dropped off” the unemployment rolls because they have been unemployed for “too-long.”

If your planning on college, vocational training or just thinking about a career change – check out the Fastest Growing Occupations Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Occupational Outlook Handbook. It is one thing to be the first and only buggy whip maker in town, but an entirely different story to be the last and only buggy whip maker in town.

Employment Projections 2008-18
Occupations expected to increase by 30 percent or more

Occupations expected to increase by 30 percent or more

2008 National Employment Matrix	Major occupational group	2008	2018	Number	Percent	Median Annual wage quartile, 2008	postsecondary education or training
Biomedical engineers	Professional and related	16.0	27.6	11.6	72.02	Very High	Bachelor’s
Network systems and data communications analysts	Professional and related	292.0	447.8	155.8	53.36	Very High	Bachelor’s
Home health aides	Service	921.7	1382.6	460.9	50.01	Very Low	Short-term on-the-job training
Personal and home care aides	Service	817.2	1,193.0	375.8	45.99	Very Low	Short-term on-the-job training
Financial examiners	Management, business, and financial	27.0	38.1	11.1	41.16	Very High	Bachelor’s
Medical scientists, except epidemiologists	Professional and related	109.4	153.6	44.2	40.36	Very High	Doctoral
Physician assistants	Professional and related	74.8	103.9	29.2	38.99	Very High	Master’s
Skin care specialists	Service	38.8	53.5	14.7	37.86	Low	Postsecondary vocational award
Biochemists and biophysicists	Professional and related	23.2	31.9	8.7	37.42	Very High	Doctoral
Athletic trainers	Professional and related	16.3	22.4	6.0	36.95	High	Bachelor’s
Physical therapist aides	Service	46.1	62.8	16.7	36.29	Low	Short-term on-the-job training
Dental hygienists	Professional and related	174.1	237.0	62.9	36.14	Very High	Associate
Veterinary technologists and technicians	Professional and related	79.6	108.1	28.5	35.77	Low	Associate
Dental assistants	Service	295.3	400.9	105.6	35.75	Low	Moderate-term on-the-job training
Computer software engineers, applications	Professional and related	514.8	689.9	175.1	34.01	Very High	Bachelor’s
Medical assistants	Service	483.6	647.5	163.9	33.9	Low	Moderate-term on-the-job training
Physical therapist assistants	Service	63.8	85.0	21.2	33.28	High	Associate
Veterinarians	Professional and related	59.7	79.4	19.7	32.95	Very High	First professional
Self-enrichment education teachers	Professional and related	253.6	334.9	81.3	32.05	High	Work experience in a related occupation
Compliance officers, except agriculture, construction, health and safety, and transportation	Management, business, and financial	260.2	341.0	80.8	31.05	High	Long-term on-the-job training
Occupational therapist aides	Service	7.8	10.2	2.4	30.74	Low	Short-term on-the-job training
Environmental engineers	Professional and related	54.3	70.9	16.6	30.62	Very High	Bachelor’s
Pharmacy technicians	Professional and related	326.3	426.0	99.8	30.57	Low	Moderate-term on-the-job training
Computer software engineers, systems software	Professional and related	394.8	515.0	120.2	30.44	Very High	Bachelor’s
Survey researchers	Professional and related	23.4	30.5	7.1	30.36	High	Bachelor’s
Physical therapists	Professional and related	185.5	241.7	56.2	30.27	Very High	Master’s
Personal financial advisors	Management, business, and financial	208.4	271.2	62.8	30.13	Very High	Bachelor’s
Environmental engineering technicians	Professional and related	21.2	27.5	6.4	30.1	High	Associate