Friday, March 28, 2008

The Job Market March-April, 2008


I slipped up.

I'm writing my monthly commentary about the job market at almost the end of March and, as you may have seen, that is unusual. Usually, I'm like clockwork.

But this month, I have had so much to do with the release of my first e-books, new VIPs in my program (www.vippersonalsearch.com) plus an extremely busy office schedule with many more new assignments.

What's a recruiter to do???

So here we are at the end of March and Wall Street has joined manufacturing and mortgage professionals as being the most impacted by the slowing economy. See http://themarket.blogspot.com/2008/03/wall-streets-layoff-picture.html for a video from The Wall Street Journal

A recent Manpower survey (available at http://themarket.blogspot.com/2008/03/manpower-employment-outlook-survey.html)
observes that many CEO's are taking a more cautious approach to hiring in the second quarter . . . and that is extremely unusual given where we are in the recessionary cycle.

And that is extremely telling.

Look, I work in New York and my practice is national. Other than the class of jobs I referred to earlier, no one is laying people off. Why? First of all, employment is a lagging indicator. That means that many other things happen before the large layoffs occur.

Secondly, with labor shortages being a huge part of the competitive landscape, where will employers find new hires when the recession ends if the start to jettison staff?

So employers are taking a go-slow attitude to job cuts.

Now, this doesn't mean that if you work at Bear Stearns and no one has come to you to talk about your severance, that you will become a JPMorganChase employee in a few months.

Au contraire, some people have been spoken with about extremely generous packages already.

If no one has, they want you for the systems integration and then lots of you will be meeting at the exit doors and in the reception areas of lots of employers in New York, just like the Countrywide people were doing.

In summary, for now, there is nothing to fear in the job market and lots to take advantage of!

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

© 2008 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 retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.getyourselfhiredNOW.com Register at the site and you will receive free copies of The International Job Board List and a Guide to Resume Writing.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.

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posted by Unknown at 8:52 PM