Friday, July 8, 2011

The Monster Index On the Direction of Jobs

Under the theory that you need to advertise for help before you hire help, the Monster Index is very instructive. The index provides real-time data on online job demand and recruitment activity.


The slight dip in recent jobs advertising can explain the June slowdown in job hires . However, note that the dip is over and jobs advertising is ticking upward again.

According to Monster, by industry, 13 out of 20 sectors showed annual growth in online job demand, with the mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction industry leading the Monster Index with a 60% yearly increase.

26 of the 28 metro markets recorded positive annual growth in job demand for June, with Minneapolis leading (+24%) the country, followed by Detroit (+22%), Cleveland (+18%) and Cincinnati (+18%). The only metro area with an annual decline in job demand was Washington, D.C., which experienced a -7% decrease in June.

Bottom line: We are in another money supply manipulated growth spurt in the economy. The slowdwon in job growth is a minor dip. Accelerating price inflation is going to be the standout in the numbers for the remainder of the year.

(htMarkPerry)

3 comments:

  1. "Accelerating price inflation is going to be the standout in the numbers for the remainder of the year."

    So based on this trend of increasing jobs advertising, do you foresee a corresponding increase in wages? In other words, if price inflation picks up n%, will wages rise as the manipulated money supply growth torques the job market? Will wage increases keep pace with price inflation? What does this look like a year from now? Might wage inflation equal 1/2n% compared to price inflation?

    I work for a small technology consulting firm, and we've got more demand than we can handle. We're trying to find skilled candidates to fill several open positions. In a management meeting today, one of my colleagues remarked that all this demand is great, but it feels eerily like the boom before the bust. Regardless, we're having to increase our offers to candidates in order to entice them away from their current employers, and our overhead and average salary is increasing rapidly.

    I've followed your blog for a while now, so I've seen you write about the tech sector (Silicon Valley in particular), and it's been very similar to what we've experienced. But I can't help thinking my colleague is right, and that we're going to hit a bust and find ourselves with a lot of high-paid workers a year from now and decreasing demand from the marketplace.

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  2. @anon 2:42

    I'm not Mr. Wenzel but I think he would respond by saying what will happen next year depends on the erratic manipulation of the money supply by the Fed Chairman. Turn off the spigot and you'll be handing out pink slips. Keep the flow going and you'll have everyone on staff asking for raises.

    I understand if that isn't very helpful.

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  3. (I'm the original commenter above)
    Thanks for the reply @anon 3:47
    The questions above are an example of why I despise the Fed and beltway crowd so much. None of them give a flip about the uncertainty they've introduced in the marketplace. It's never been easy to make long-term plans for a business, but at least there were certain fundamentals you could rely on to some degree: being rewarded by the marketplace for innovation and value, getting corrected by the market for misallocation of resources or overpricing, etc.

    In today's manipulated market, there are no fundamentals. Your innovation and value can be erased by the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen, and your pricing (especially in the professional services realm) can vary wildly throughout the year and depending on which sector your selling to.

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