Recruiting among U.S. employers continues to be strong with the unemployment rate falling to 3.9% according to today’s Labor Department report. This is one of the lowest levels of post-World War II unemployment.
Employers have now been steadily recruiting for 91 straight months! Starting back in October 2010, this has been the longest period of job growth on record. Additionally, May marked 107 months of overall economic expansion, which was the second longest on record. This trailed only the expansion of the 1990s in length.
Job growth expanded in many industries including manufacturing, health care, and accounting. Employers added 164,000 jobs in April and have created an average 200,000 jobs a month this year, up from last year’s average gain of 182,000.
The fall in joblessness marked yet another milestone in our nation’s long recovery from the 2007-2009 recession, which sent unemployment soaring to 10% in October 2009. Unemployment has only been below 4% on a few occasions during the past 70 years including: a) during the Korean War in the early 1950s b) during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s and c) during the tech boom of 2000.
Wages Also Growing Due to Increased Job Recruiting
Economic theory suggests that when workers become this scarce, employers need to raise wages quickly to recruit and retain employees. This is confirmed by a separate report last Friday showing that compensation for American workers grew at a faster clip in the first quarter, signaling that historically low unemployment might be starting to put upward pressure on companies’ labor costs. The employment-cost index, a measure of wages and benefits for civilian workers, rose a seasonally adjusted 0.8% in January through March, the Labor Department said Friday.
Moreover, a separate index of wages and salaries of private-sector workers released last week by the Labor Department showed they rose 2.9% for the year ended in March, which was the strongest gain in nearly a decade.
Employers Need More Proactive Recruiting Strategies
Our consulting division at Strategic Search Corporation has been advising many clients over the past several months on best practices to attract and retain key talent. Especially research and development (R&D), technical, engineering, scientific, information technology (IT) and manufacturing technology experts, in fields like AI (artificial intelligence), VR (virtual reality) and bitcoin, which have been increasingly in short supply and high demand.
As part of our recruitment advice, we have conducted seminars based upon our 12 Commandments of Recruiting. During these sessions our goal is to increase the recruitment prowess of our clients.
