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Job Market IS Down–You Can Be Picky About Your Candidates

We found this article in the New York Times.

Jobs Report Is Weaker Than Expected

By JEREMY W. PETERS
Employers added just 88,000 jobs in April — the smallest number in more than two years, the Labor Department reported today.In the monthly report on national employment, the job market showed weakness across many industries, from banking and retail to construction and manufacturing. It was a suggestion that after months of holding up well, the labor market was beginning to cool as the economy slowed.Wages, after rising at a solid clip in the middle of last year, are now growing more slowly than inflation, causing many workers to take an effective pay cut. In April, rank-and-file workers — a group that makes up 80 percent of the labor force — made $17.25 an hour on average, down from about $17.30 in October, in inflation-adjusted terms.In addition, the report said that job growth in March and February was not as strong as the government first estimated. The Labor Department overcounted those months by a total of 26,000 jobs.The unemployment rate rose to 4.5 percent from 4.4 percent.But Wall Street seemed to take the news in stride, and stocks were flat at midday.The percentage of the population that is employed dropped last month to 63 percent, from 63.3 in March. By industry, retail was the weakest, shedding 26,000 jobs. Small gains in businesses like furniture stores and automobile dealerships were not enough to offset the loss of 41,000 jobs in general merchandise stores. Financial services businesses and construction firms each cut 11,000 jobs. The downsizing in manufacturing continued as 19,000 jobs were lost on factory floors last month.

Education, health care, governments and leisure and hospitality businesses provided a cushion for all the jobs cut in other industries last month, adding a combined 100,000 positions.

Many economists described the report as weak.

“Growth has peaked,” Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist with High Frequency Economics, said in a research report. “The Fed needs to start thinking about easing, soon please.”

But with inflation still above rates the Federal Reserve considers healthy and unemployment relatively low, central bankers are not likely to see anything in the most recent jobs report that would cause them to shift course.

“This report will probably be viewed by the Federal Reserve as more backward than forward looking,” Joshua Shapiro, chief United States economist of MFR, said in a report. “We continue to expect monetary policy to remain unchanged for the balance of the year.”

With the economy slowing down — the government said last week that growth in the first quarter cooled to the slowest pace in four years — businesses may be starting to cut back.

“It tells me that labor demand is weaker than we thought,” said Jared Bernstein, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute. “And that businesses are exercising a level of caution in hiring that looks kind of new to me and kind of scary.”

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.