A high percentage of unemployed professionals means recruiters are inundated with the requests of job seekers who span a broad spectrum of capabilities (e.g. from the highly qualified, to the not-so-qualified) whenever a job posting goes online. Sifting through all that information, even with technology, can be a challenge.
New data suggest that the economy’s long-term slide may finally be showing signs of coming to a halt. Specifically, the pace of layoffs tapered considerably in September. The latest report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. on downsizing activity reveals that planned job cuts announced by employers last month fell to 34,768, the lowest monthly total in over a decade and a 17 percent decrease from the 41,676 cuts announced in July. August’s number, in fact, broke a three-month-long spate of increases in layoffs.
“Women and the Economy 2010: 25 Years of Progress But Challenges Remain,” a new report by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee (JEC), looks at how women’s economic conditions have improved over the past 25 years, and the findings are encouraging. Women now comprise nearly half of the labor force, the reveals the report, which goes on to note that slightly more of them than men now graduate from four-year high schools.
More than 48 percent of industries experienced a quarterly percentage gain in online jobs posted, according to Beyond.com, Inc.’s Second Quarter 2010 Career Trend Analysis Report, released earlier this week. This reconciles with findings fromMonster Employment Index, which has shown a year-over-year increase in online job postings for the past six months. More than 73 percent of employers were looking for full-time employees, according to Beyond’s findings, an increase of 12 percent from the previous quarter. Healthcare and Medical represented the largest percentage gain in overall jobs posted (5.57 percent), followed by 2.24 percent for Sales and Sales Management.
For several months, the job market has exhibited various characteristics seemingly at odds with each other. Data from July continues this trend. Concurrently, however, job cuts continue apace: Employers announced plans to shed 41,676 workers in July, according to global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., which released its latest report on planned job cuts on Aug. 4. The 6 percent increase in layoffs, compared to the 39,358 layoffs in June, also mirrors others’ findings over many months’ time.
The vast majority of employers continue use the internal communication channels of email (83 percent) and intranet (75 percent) to engage their employees and foster productivity, find International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation and Buck Consultants (A Xerox Company).
Fifty-four percent of large U.S. businesses that reduced staff in the past 12 months plan to rebuild their workforces to pre-recession levels within two years, according to a study released in mid-July by Accenture. “The Accenture High Performance Workforce Study” found that among all U.S. companies surveyed, only 13 percent of executives say that they plan to reduce their employee base over the next 12 months.
Employees’ level of engagement in the U.S. workforce has been troubling low over the past 12 months, according to research from Modern Survey earlier this year, and a new study from the same organization shows that this drop has been pronounced in the financial sector: The number of disengaged employees in finance has skyrocketed from 11 percent of the population in 2009 to 29 percent in 2010, a statistically significant increase of 18 percentage points.
The year-over-year average starting salary for college graduates is down 1.3 percent, according to a new study conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Even so, recent graduates with degrees in information sciences, economics and finance bucked the trend and saw their average pay increase. Again, and as usual, engineering grads saw the highest average starting pay out of college, but for the first time in a while, that average dipped — slightly, by 0.5 percent.
Share As HR departments across Canada and the United States have continued in their strict, waist-slimming regimen of doing more with smaller workforces, many have, predictably, begun to explore technologies and methodologies designed to manage employees to their fullest performance potential, finds an annual Towers Watson HR Service Delivery Study. For 42 percent of the [...]
