Jobs Report by the Labor Department showed today only 20,000 new jobs were created last month. This was still the 101st straight month of job creation, which was another new, all-time record!
As a result, the unemployment rate fell to 3.8% in February. While the pace of job growth was weak in February, the various measures of the unemployment rate all ticked down. The broadest measure—which includes part-time workers who want full-time work—declined to 7.3% from 8.1% in January. That was its lowest mark since 2001. The Labor Department said that January’s reading may have been influenced by the government shutdown.
Hourly and weekly wages continued to rise somewhat more than 3% per year. With inflation slowing, real wage gains are now increasing once again.
Though only 20,000 new jobs were created, several sectors had significant job gains. This included: a) Healthcare with 21,000 new jobs b) Professional and Business Services 42,000 jobs c) the Wholesale Trade with 11,000 new jobs and d) manufacturing with 4,000 new jobs.
Unfortunately, the Construction sector slowed last month with a loss of 31,000 jobs. This was also a net loss of 83,000 employees from the previous month.
Technical, R&D, Engineering, Scientific and IT Recruitment Still Tough
Despite only 20,000 overall jobs created last month, many staffing professionals across the nation are experiencing a ‘War For Talent’ in recruiting scientists, engineers, research and development (R&D), information technology (IT), and manufacturing technology talent with recruitment getting harder by the day.
The demand for technology candidates far outstrips the talent supply. As a result, companies need to recruit more aggressively formulating novel recruitment strategies. That is why I created the 12 Commandments of Recruiting to help our clients with staffing issues.
Recruiting Hard In Tight Scientific, Engineering Job Market
Over the last 18 months Strategic Search Corporation recruiters have increasingly noticed the supply of skilled engineers, scientists, IT, R&D, technical and manufacturing technology talent is very limited with the demand for such candidates increasing,
This problem is problem is particularly acute for scientists, engineers, R&D (research and development), IT (information technology) and manufacturing technology candidates in cutting edge fields like AI (artificial intelligence), IoT (Internet of Things), VR (virtual reality), robotics, and AR (augmented reality).
In these fast growing fields job openings are staying unfilled for many months due to a short supply of job candidates. This makes the staffing manager’s jobs very, very difficult. As a result, we recommend, being very, very creative with your staffing approaches.
Call me today at 312-944-4000 to discuss how we can assist with your engineering, technical, R&D (research and development), IT and scientific efforts. Or click here for my full contact information.
