The Labor Department reported this morning that jobs rebounded last month, after a lethargic spring, by adding 287,000 in June. This was the strongest month of hiring since last October. This jobs figure was boosted by the end of a strike at Verizon Communications Inc. that the agency had said lowered jobs by 35,000 in May.
Additionally, engineering and technical employment continues to soar. Most engineering recruiting search professionals that we have surveyed over the past 30 days have reported engineering job vacancies again on the rise. Engineering recruiters are placing a new job advertisement every minute! This is wide ranging including online staffing requisitions for manufacturing, quality, process, science, architecture, construction, design, development and other technical jobs.
Need To Better Vet Engineering Talent Using Social Media
With the significant rise in engineering staffing, many firms need to reacquaint themselves with the risk of hiring the wrong person. Especially in engineering and technical fields, mistakes by the incorrect engineering hire can be disastrous. Fortunately, with the rise in social media, there are many new online sources to use to uncover additional information during the recruitment process.
That is why I recommend that you should investigate candidates on the Internet. A lot of candidate information exists on the Internet especially on social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Therefore, you want to dig deep. That is why I created a short video for you on this subject. Please click on #10 below for more details.
Positive Employment Statistics Extend Beyond Engineering Jobs
The workforce expanded in June after shrinking the prior month, and the labor-force participation rate ticked up to 62.7%.
Additionally, Friday’s employment report benefited from the state of the U.S. job market as of mid-June. It didn’t account for any effects from the U.K. vote on June 23 to exit the European Union, a decision that jolted markets globally and strengthened the dollar. The impact of Brexit on the U.S. economy will begin to come into focus over the coming months.
On the domestic front, a tightening job market also put upward pressure on wage growth as employers compete over a smaller pool of available workers. Average hourly earnings for private-sector workers rose by two cents in June to $25.61 and were up 2.6% compared with a year earlier.
However, Not All Rosy On The Jobs Front
Engineering increases did not translate to job vacancies in all fields. For example, the Labor Department revisions also showed that U.S. employers added 6,000 fewer jobs in May and April than previously estimated. May’s payrolls figure was revised down to a meager gain of 11,000, the weakest month of hiring since the U.S. stopped shedding jobs in 2010.
Including June’s strong rebound, hiring in the second quarter averaged only 147,000 a month, which was down from 196,000 in the first quarter and 229,000 in 2015.
Additionally, the unemployment rate, rose to 4.9% in June from 4.7% in May, partly retracing its drop from 5.0% in April.
Finally, a more accurate measure of unemployment, which takes into account both Americans who are working part time because they can’t find full-time jobs and those who have given up looking for jobs, remains high at 9.6% in June.
