>>By the Numbers: June 8, 2018

By the Numbers: June 8, 2018

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U.S. Unemployment Decreases Again

The Numbers:

  • U.S. unemployment rate decreased from 3.9% to 3.8% in May
  • Monthly employment report showed an increase of 223K nonfarm jobs in May
  • In May – Retail increased by 31K jobs, Healthcare by 29K, Construction by 25K

Labor Department Reports More Jobs Than Candidates

The Numbers: 6.7 million jobs available in May, 6.3 million available in April, 6.1 million in March

In a statement, Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta said “Never before have we had an economy where the number of open jobs exceeds the number of job seekers. This administration is committed to ensuring that all Americans have the necessary skills to access good, family-sustaining jobs. With the lowest unemployment rate in over 18 years and 3.4 million jobs created since President Trump’s election, this is a great time be a job seeker in the United States.”

Labor Market in Best Shape Since 1970…But Raises Stagnant

The Numbers: Raises stuck at just 2.7% the last two years even though unemployment fell from 5% to 3.8%.

Employment Trends Index Falls But Job Growth to Continue

The Numbers: Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index decreased in May after 5 consecutive monthly increases – fell to 107.69 in May, down from 108 in April.

“The decline in the Employment Trends Index in May is probably a reversion to trend after the very rapid increases in recent months,” said Gad Levanon, chief economist, North America, at The Conference Board. “With the economy growing well above trend, we expect solid job growth to continue despite the difficulty in filling job openings.”

U.S. Job Openings Hit High in April

The Numbers: U.S. job openings increased by 65K in April to 6.7 million – highest level since tracking began in December 2000. Job openings was 4.3% in April, which is flat against March but up from 4% in April 2017. Hiring continues to lag, with shortage of workers thought to be the culprit.

Gross Hiring Up

The Numbers: Nationally, across all industries, gross hiring in the U.S. was 4.5% higher than in May 2017.

Largest Investment Firms Hiring More Engineers Than Finance Staff

The Numbers: Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said just last month, “We’ve become as much of a technology company as we are a bank.”BlackRock is hiring tech specialists at twice the rate it’s onboarding non-technologists, according to Chief Operating Officer Rob Goldstein.

“Like any information processing business, technology is changing every component of it,” Goldstein says of financial services. “It’s just going through this continual cycle of better, faster, cheaper.”

IT Job Growth Slows Due to Talent Shortage

The Numbers: U.S. IT jobs increase .03% in May for a total of 5.3 million.

“We have hit a wall in terms of IT jobs growth,” TechServe Alliance CEO Mark Roberts said. “There are simply not enough qualified IT professionals to meet demand. This shortage has only been further exacerbated by the restrictive immigration policies of this administration.”

More Job Postings Include Salary Info

The Numbers: Glassdoor survey finds new list of 18 companies listing salaries

Technology Could Make or Break Hiring Key Candidates

The Numbers: Per a new study from Aruba, 64% of workers believe their company will fall behind if new technology is not integrated. 71% believe the future workplace should be fully automated. 72% believe that environment should be interactive with automatic updates.

U.S. Employers Increasingly Looking to Interns

The Numbers: The new ‘2018 Internship & Co-op Survey’ report from National Association of Colleges and Employers finds that U.S. employers plan to hire 1.7% more interns this year than last year, and will pay them more. Intern pay has increased 3.7% year over year, which is 67 cents – coming out to an average hourly rate of $18.73.

Seasonal Workers Sought After in Competitive Hiring Market

The Numbers: A survey by CareerBuilder finds that 41% of employers plan to hire seasonal workers. 73% state they will recruit college students, 39% high school students and 26% retirees. 41% want to hire veterans. “Employers are grappling with a tough hiring environment, and summer workers are reaping the benefits,” said CareerBuilder President and COO Irina Novoselsky. “Employers are becoming more competitive with pay and offering more long-term employment opportunities to summer workers. It’s a great way for workers to add new skills, build up their resumes and expand their professional networks.”

Contingent Workforce Measured for First Time in 12 Years

The Numbers: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that contingent workers make up 1.3% to 3.8% of total employment in May.

Rising Oil = Good News for Job Candidates

The Numbers: LinkedIn’s June Workforce Report finds that hiring in the oil and gas industry is directly linked to crude oil prices. Cities entrenched in this will see a boom – Odessa-Midland., TX had the highest national rent increase, up 35.7%

Oil Industry Burning Up

The Numbers: Hiring in oil and energy rose 5.2% year over year, along with oil prices…that are at their highest since December 2014. Houston hiring has seen a similar upswing with 12.4% growth.

Jobless Claims Up, But Initial Claims Lowest Since 1969

The Numbers: “The US four-week moving average of initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 225,500 last week, up 2,750 from the previous week’s average, the US Department of Labor reported. The previous week’s average was revised upward by 500. The four-week moving average decreases the volatility of the weekly numbers. Total initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ended June 2 fell to 222,000, down 1,000 from the previous week’s level, which was revised upward by 2,000. Claims-taking procedures in Puerto Rico and in the Virgin Islands still have not returned to normal.”

Grads Want Growth Opportunities Over Other Factors

The Numbers: Per the report, ‘What the Class of 2018 Wants’ from LaSalle Network found that 76% of recent grads list ‘opportunity for growth’ as the top factor they look at when considering a new job. Compensation and team culture rounded out the top three at 51% and 50% respectively.

Cybersecurity Talent in High Demand Per CIOs

The Numbers: The 2018 Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey found that ‘investment in cybersecurity’ is the priority growing the quickest for IT leaders, at 23% growth year over year. Managing operational risk and compliance is also on the rise with 12% growth year over year.

2018’s Fastest-Growing Job Categories

The Numbers: The ‘2018 Jobs Rated Report’ from CareerCast found Genetic Counselor at the top of the list for the best jobs of 2018 – the field grew 85% since 2006 and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts the profession to see growth of almost 30% by 2026. Technology led the way in new job creation within STEM categories – mathematician, data scientist, information security analyst, operations research analyst, and actuary made up half of the top 10.

Majority of Tech Workers Burning Out

The Numbers: Per Blind’s analysis of almost 12K responses from their online community and other studies such as the Kronos Incorporated and Future Workplace poll and a Harvard Business School study – almost 60% of tech works suffer from burnout from their job. Burnout was found to cause 20-50% of annual turnover and healthcare costs of up to $190 million a year.

Flexible Schedules Top Priority

The Numbers:  A survey from Unum found that employees with caregiving responsibilities value a flexible schedule over other perks – employer-paid leave and working from home rounded out the top three.

Asian-Americans Least Likely to Earn Promotions

The Numbers: A Harvard Business Review report found that while Asian-Americans have a strong workforce presence, they are least likely to be considered for promotion to a senior management role.

Chick-fil-A Increases Hourly Wage as Retention Play

The Numbers: A CA location has plans to raise wages for hourly employees from $12-13 an hour to $17-18 an hour as a way to improve retention, as the restaurant industry is experiencing high turnover rates.

Top Workplace Etiquette Breach

The Numbers:  Per an Accountemps survey, U.S. managers cite arriving late or missing meetings completely as the number one breach of workplace etiquette.  Not responding to calls/emails in a reasonable amount of time at 26% and workplace gossip at 23% were also top on the list.

Rural America Needs Hires, But Can’t House Them

The Numbers: Employers in the rural U.S. are finding themselves competing with big cities to lure candidates to their open roles due to the record low unemployment rate. Per the Wall Street Journal, only 10% of single-family homes built in 2016 were in rural parts of the country, which is down from 14% in 2010.  A shortage of homes adds to the list of challenges felt by smaller towns in this hiring landscape.

Nursing Not Keeping Up with Cost of Living

The Numbers: Per data from LinkedIn, nurses are finding that their pay isn’t keeping up with cost of living, such as in markets with climbing housing markets. Therefore, these ‘hot markets’ are having a hard time hiring nurses caused by “A combination of stubbornly flat salaries, a red-hot housing market and a lagging education system, report LinkedIn’s Jaimy Lee and George Anders.”

Vermont Bringing Their A Game to Attract Talent

The Numbers: Vermont Governor Phil Scott signed a bill that will give remote workers $10,000 over two years to keep their jobs and move to Vermont. The issue? The residents of the state are growing older quicker than the rest of the country, so luring younger folks to boost their tax base is a high priority.

Remote Work Not the Killer of Collaboration

The Numbers: Northeastern’s Christoph Riedl and Carnegie Mellon’s Anita Williams Woolley have found that ‘effective collaboration is related more to a team’s communication style’ rather than where they are located. Rather, teams using ‘bursty communication’ (concentrated exchanges with little lag time between responses) actually are more productive – they give the ability to agree quickly on goals and focus on getting the work done.

Layoffs More Detrimental than Productive

The Numbers: A study from Harvard Business Review found that companies who participate in layoffs have decreased profitability than those that don’t. Other ways to handle restructuring would be retraining workers and reassigning them to new roles.

Gender Pay Gap Affects Gig Economy

The Numbers: Fast Company finds that female freelancers earn less and are paid late more than males – woman earn 79 cents for every dollar a man makes in the traditional workforce and this is also translating to gig work.

Highest-Paid CEOs

The Numbers: The highest-paid finance CEO, JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon, earned over $28 million in 2017 – he has been the number one paid finance CEO for three of the past four years. The median pay for banking and finance CEOs is $12.1 million.

Cybersecurity to Grow by Leaps and Bounds by 2022

The Numbers: Data-security jobs will outnumber workers by 2022 by 265K. Along with rising demand are rising salaries, with $121K being the median data-security analyst salary.

Training Gap in U.S. Federal Agencies

The Numbers: The U.S. Office of Personnel Management finds that 84% of respondents stated that ‘new managers at federal agencies were offered a training curriculum that included all four federally-mandated training topics’ and just 63% of more experienced managers were given training programs that included mandatory topics.

By |2018-06-08T03:57:05+00:00June 8th, 2018|Categories: Talent Acquisition Trends|Comments Off on By the Numbers: June 8, 2018

About the Author:

Erin Geiger is a seasoned Content, Editorial, and Product Engagement professional with two decades of experience creating content as well as overall content direction and strategy. Her background stems from a variety of online verticals ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 corporations.