Jobs are out there, no matter the “economy”

There was a very interesting blog post this month on ERE that had me and many other recruiters or human resource professionals sit up and take notes. Now typically the US Media does not pay a lot of attention to the upside of these reports. Instead, what is highly trafficked and extremely hyped-up when these reports are released are the perceived negatives to help us all feel just a little bit worse about this so called “economy.” Well, economies are like rivers, they don’t stay constant except constant change.

The great news I think that does need to be reported are two critical statistics the media is not talking about (or at least the glimpses I see). The first is the number of people WHO DID GET A NEW JOB in February in the US. This number, approximately 4.4 million, constitutes new hires just for one month! Wow, compare the difference in total separations verses new hires for the year and you only have a difference of 3.9 million “separations.” The separations include total numbers so this also accounts for people who have QUIT a job. Taking that into consideration I don’t think we are in such an abysmal state?

The second statistic to highlight is the number of job openings. If you read closely you will see it is tracked for a single day of the month, last business day, and the number for February was 3 million. YES, three million jobs open as the DOL can assume just for the last day in February 2009! Knowing what I know about the public job market I am willing to bet this number does not even touch the countless job openings not reported by small companies and professional recruitment firms or even many staffing operations.

Are you excited? I am, as a professional recruiter I am very happy to know there are jobs to hire people into not in fourth quarter of 2009 but in February and currently in April. Good luck and happy job hunting!

*To view the full Department of Labor report click here.

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