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« Back to September 2004 Explorer newsletter
What’s Hot & What’s Not
Recent reports and happenings that could affect your world. Through our extensive research channels, Rocket-Hire keeps an ear to the ground to learn what’s changing.
HOT: Job Growth up from a Dreary Summer, and Better than Last Year
Manpower Inc. has just released The Manpower Employment Outlook, its longtime quarterly survey of more than 35,000 organizations worldwide. Representing 19 countries and territories, employers are queried regarding their intent to add or subtract from their workforce in the upcoming quarter. Manpower optimistically reports that for the fourth quarter of 2004, 28% of employers in the US plan to add workers, with 60% keeping their payroll steady.
Whereas government reports of job expansion indicated a weak summer with an upturn in August, Manpower expects hiring to grow as it has in the past two quarters, indicating a steady pattern of growth, but much better than last year. The pattern is consistent with a worldwide pattern of steady job growth, as Mexico, Hong Kong and New Zealand also reported positive job expansion.
More results of Manpower’s survey.
HOT: How Stupid Can Hiring Get? Ask the Headhunter.
Nick Corcodilos, one of the more well-known executive recruiters and a razor-sharp commentator on the hiring world, has unleashed his Top 10 Stupid Hiring Mistakes on his “Ask The Headhunter” website. Not your usual cynic and always spot-on, Nick brings us his best “isn’t this obvious to everybody” list and gripping tales from the hiring battlefield.
Check out http://www.asktheheadhunter.com for the whole Top 10.
NOT: IT Job Growth slows, with Total Number of Tech Jobs Expected to Shrink
“The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) survey -- released Wednesday -- said that the high-tech job market showed a modest two percent increase in the first quarter of 2004 but that the market is expected to shrink over the rest of the year. “ The real implication is that the total IT workforce of approximately 10.5 million will actually shrink as 270,000 fewer jobs are filled this year. Even when using a narrower definition of “IT worker”, the AP reported that the tech sector shrank by 18.8% between March 2001 and April 2004. Especially hard hit was the San Francisco Bay Area, where the tech workforce shrank by a depressing 49%.
The information technology sector is often referenced as a part of the economy characterized by safe, strong job growth. Globally, the US is a center of innovation and home to the largest skilled IT labor force. But lately, it is not safe to assume that the tech sector will keep pace with overall job growth.
HOT: The Government and Monster team up on USAJOBS website
Monster Worldwide’s common-sense Quickhire product is now integrated with many job ad displays on USAJOBS, the fed’s own job board. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency has successfully posted several positions to USAJOBS in the new format, which utilizes a “tabbed display” of well-organized job information. The agency claims that it will enable job seekers to access more information about each job opportunity, and draw in more and better-qualified applicants
Monster claims, “More than 50 customers representing more than 100 federal, state, and local government agencies have chosen QuickHire to automate the hiring process.” As the Office of Personnel Management and other agencies attempt to normalize the use hiring technology solutions in the public sector, any effort the government makes to improve hiring practices is a step in the right direction. A trend toward a more careful selection of government workers is a necessity for any effort at reducing government waste or improving services.
Read more about the collaboration between the federal government and Monster Worldwide.
NOT: The Perils of Hiring Poorly
Is hiring poorly worse than hiring no one at all? Check out the insightful and humorous musings on bad employees at the great BostonWorks Hr Blog.