April, 2007

While suffering with sciatica for most of the past 3 weeks, I have been out of my office but still speaking with clients, reading emails and news, responding to requests and such.

It has slowed me down (I couldn't walk much for more than a week), yet throughout, I couldn't help but notice the very clear message of labor shortages for skilled workers.

Teachers, accountants, computer professionals and many more are finding that firms are clamoring to hire people with their experience. March unemployment added 180000 new jobs (I view unemployment numbers as trend lines , rather than concrete data; even so, we are now trending strongly).

I have been pretty active in some online discussions on www.ere.net between corporate and third party recruiters and am finding hr professionals discussing the possibility of using sign on bonuses to attract talent in several surprising industries (building services and construction).

I spoke a with a search professional from a major consulting firm who told me of the struggle to find Partner and Director level professionals for one of their practices; another , with a different firm shares more and more orders as their firm explodes with new business; a third just keeps sending out 50 new positions a day at a minimum.

That's 50 completely different positions per day, not 50 repeat positions.

H-1b applications for 2007 were filled within a day of being made available--65000 people will be absorbed into the US economy and we are still pleading for more.

Labor shortages and, in particular, skilled labor shortages offer the biggest threat (after terrorism, of course) to the US economy. In the future, shortages will force mergers and cause far more more havoc than the sub-prime scares that we are currently experiencing in the stock market.

Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2007 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

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