The Job Market: January 2009
If you are looking for a job, you already know that the job market is "complicated."
There are lots of jobs available but more than 3 people for every job applying (3 million open positions and over 9 million people looking for a job).
You may not have known the exact numbers but you've got to know it's bad out there.
Companies are giving job applicants two choices when they extend job offers--leave it and take it. There is no negotiating room and "bad offers" aer the norm.
If you work in financial services in the New York area, figure out a way that your family can live without you during the week because that market will not return for quite some time (and may nor even return to the high cost New York area).
Why should it?
The two most successful firms in financial services are Bank of America and JPMorganChase and both have made huge commitments to real estate outside of the region.
What financial services firm is going to be hiring en masse and paying "major money?" Let's look who the leaders were since 9/11:
Bear Stearns: Gone
Lehman Brothers: Gone
Goldman Sachs: They finally went public with 10% job cuts but were clandestinely making cuts for a year
UBS: Alive but hemorrhaging money
Credit Suisse: 5000+ cuts announced prior to the holidays
Barclays: Come on. They couldn;t raise money in the UK two months ago
Hedge Funds: Nope
Private Equity firms: No access to credit/money means no ability to buy businesses or manage marginal businesses through the hurricane that will be 2009 (See Chrysler and Cerberus)
No one has been able to tell me who will pay "major league money"
Unemployment in California is already over 8% (I've seen 8.7% pretty frequently) and headed to double digit levels.
The most pessimistic people I have spoken to or seen quoted are business leaders who anticipate 10% plus unemployment (That means California will be close to 12% or more).
When hiring returns, it will not be in the high coast big cities but in the "B" and C" sites that are lower cost yet, because of technology, can deliver a high return on investment.
Your job is to cut your costs to the bone and survive 2009 working.
As i said to I ex-Lehman person who had severance until February 2010, "After being out of work for a year, do you think you will command the same money as you did in 2008? Of course not! Plus they will think you were incompetent for not finding work for a year."
So be smart and cut your costs proactively and fight like the Dickens to find a job.
NOW!
© 2009 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 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.
There are lots of jobs available but more than 3 people for every job applying (3 million open positions and over 9 million people looking for a job).
You may not have known the exact numbers but you've got to know it's bad out there.
Companies are giving job applicants two choices when they extend job offers--leave it and take it. There is no negotiating room and "bad offers" aer the norm.
If you work in financial services in the New York area, figure out a way that your family can live without you during the week because that market will not return for quite some time (and may nor even return to the high cost New York area).
Why should it?
The two most successful firms in financial services are Bank of America and JPMorganChase and both have made huge commitments to real estate outside of the region.
What financial services firm is going to be hiring en masse and paying "major money?" Let's look who the leaders were since 9/11:
Bear Stearns: Gone
Lehman Brothers: Gone
Goldman Sachs: They finally went public with 10% job cuts but were clandestinely making cuts for a year
UBS: Alive but hemorrhaging money
Credit Suisse: 5000+ cuts announced prior to the holidays
Barclays: Come on. They couldn;t raise money in the UK two months ago
Hedge Funds: Nope
Private Equity firms: No access to credit/money means no ability to buy businesses or manage marginal businesses through the hurricane that will be 2009 (See Chrysler and Cerberus)
No one has been able to tell me who will pay "major league money"
Unemployment in California is already over 8% (I've seen 8.7% pretty frequently) and headed to double digit levels.
The most pessimistic people I have spoken to or seen quoted are business leaders who anticipate 10% plus unemployment (That means California will be close to 12% or more).
When hiring returns, it will not be in the high coast big cities but in the "B" and C" sites that are lower cost yet, because of technology, can deliver a high return on investment.
Your job is to cut your costs to the bone and survive 2009 working.
As i said to I ex-Lehman person who had severance until February 2010, "After being out of work for a year, do you think you will command the same money as you did in 2008? Of course not! Plus they will think you were incompetent for not finding work for a year."
So be smart and cut your costs proactively and fight like the Dickens to find a job.
NOW!
© 2009 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 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
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, JobSearchUniverse.com, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “No B.S. Job Search Advice, or his staffing ezine, “No B.S. Hiring Advice”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.JeffAltman.com.
Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's employment related products
- JobSearchUniverse.com: Search thousand of Job Boards and Corporate Job Sites for job leads at the same time
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- Search4JobLeads.com: The site that recruiters use to find job leads
- VIP Personal Search: Hire Your Own VIP Personal Search Agent
- TheJobMarketBlog.com: Blogging and news about the job market since August 2001
- HeadHuntYourNextJob.com: 4 Search Products in one place
- Indian Job Network: Network for Work in India
- Search4AccountingJobs.com
- Search4ComplianceJobs.com
- Search4EngineeringJob.com
- Search4InsuranceJobs.com
- Search4TradingJobs.com
- How2Interview.info
Labels: 2009, January, The Job Market
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