The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported this morning that January’s unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since November 2007 at 4.9%! Please go to http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm for the full report from BLS.
Technical And Engineering Recruitment Remains Strong
Recruitment of top technical talent is increasing. Many online advertisements exist for engineering and technical vacancies. Not only our engineering recruiters at Strategic Search Corporation, but also many technical recruiters we have surveyed over the past 8 months confirm this.
Additionally, a recent salary survey by the technical recruitment site Dice confirmed that technical professionals saw their largest ever salary increases last year with seven new metro areas reporting six-figures for the first time in the history of their annual salary survey!
This has prompted many engineering and technical staffing and search firms to invent creative, new recruitment strategies to better attract key talent. This has included electronics engineers and mechanical engineers as well as information technology, quality assurance, construction, computer, Project Manager professionals. In general, most engineering, technical, manufacturing and science talent remains in short supply with job vacancies far exceeding viable candidates regardless of job function!
Jobs Report Was A Mixed Bag
The euphoria of engineering and technical recruitment has not carried over to macro level employment. On the positive side this was the 64th straight month of jobs creation. Furthermore, wage gains accelerated last month. The average hourly earnings of all private-sector workers grew by 12 cents in January to $25.39. Wages rose 2.5% in January from a year earlier.
However, only 151,000 new jobs were created. Most economists expected a rise by 185,000 jobs. Moreover, a broad measure of unemployment that includes Americans stuck in part-time jobs or too discouraged to work held steady at 9.9% in January, where it has been since November.
Some Areas Of Long Term Concern
Some reports in recent weeks suggest the U.S. economy lost steam in recent months amid recent stock-market turmoil and economic weakness abroad, including plummeting oil prices and a slowdown in China.
Also Friday, the Labor Department released its annual revision of overall employment in the U.S. It showed the U.S. had 206,000 fewer jobs in March 2015 than previously estimated.
