10% – The UN-Magic Number

Published on 08 November 2009 by David in Uncategorized

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If you follow the news even casually then you’re probably aware that the unemployment rate crossed an important and unfortunate threshold this past month. In only the second time since recordkeeping began in 1948 has the number gone above 10%. In November and December of 1982 we hit 10.8%. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor [...]

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The Other Jobs Number

Published on 09 July 2009 by David in Employment Trends

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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 [...]

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Jobs – It’s a Whole New World

Published on 29 June 2009 by David in Uncategorized

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There was a telling article in The Wall Street Journal last week, http://tinyurl.com/kotph7.  In a recent survey of 179 companies by consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide, 52% said they expect to hire fewer people in the next three to five years than they did prior to the recession.  20% said they’ll make recent salary cuts [...]

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The unemployment rate for May was released this week – 9.4%. Pretty miserable but fortunately not as high as the10.8% we hit in the recession of 1982, right? Well, actually no. Dig a little deeper and a more negative picture emerges.
The reason is that 9.4% reflects the core unemployment rate defined as [...]

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There’s an eyeopening article in today’s Wall Street Journal, http://tinyurl.com/nn5uut, about some of the hoops that job seekers have to jump through when applying for an open position these days.  Go to an interview and you won’t just be answering complex case questions or providing an on-the-spot business analysis.  In an effort to really determine [...]

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