If you’re out of work then you’re all too familiar with the unemployment rate – 9.5% and rising. But in the July 8th Wall Street Journal, Conor Dougherty reported on another jobs number that doesn’t get nearly as much attention – the Job Openings Rate. That’s the number of jobs actually available at any given time. The bad news is that the 2.6 million jobs available at the end of this past May was down from 4 million in May of 2008. But within that number there are some bits of good news.
First of all, the May number is the same as it was in April. In other words, it didn’t get any worse over the past two months. Also, the job openings rate in the retail sector was 2% in May, up from 1.4% in April. As we know, retail sales are the prime driver of economic health in the U.S. so any improvement there can be seen as an early indicator that the economic slide has either slowed or better yet, hit bottom. And once you hit bottom, the only place to go is up.
But the really good news in the job openings rate is that even though the number of jobs has declined dramatically from a year before, there were still 2.6 million jobs AVAILABLE. Granted the competition for those jobs will be incredibly intense but if you use best-of-breed job search skills (techniques that are designed for the current job market rather than left over from a time when the job openings rate was much higher). AND if you look for work in an industry that’s not losing jobs but holding steady or even expanding, i.e. healthcare, education, the federal government. AND if you stick with your search, no matter how disappointing, frustrating, and unfair it is – then one of those 2.6 million jobs could be yours.
To succeed in this job market you certainly have to be aware of the bad news. But to maintain your faith in the face of numerous disappointments, it’s important to search for the good news as well. I think, this month’s job openings rate is one of those “glass half full” statistics.