LABOR DAY: What were the best and worst jobs you've ever had?

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Labor Day is awesome. In fact, I think it might be awesome not just for the BBQ, (a good enough reason to love it, I plan on smoking my first ever pork belly this weekend), but also for the fact that it is one of the few holidays where we don't have to be constantly admonished to 'Remember the true meaning of the day'.

No one seems to really care anymore about the 'true meaning' of Labor Day. The battle is mostly over. 'Labor' has more or less lost. 

But so what? Let's have some burgers!

So maybe we can try and have some fun today and share both our best and worst jobs that we have ever had.

Just one tip though, if your current job is the worst one you have ever had, you might not necessarily share that one in the comments, just in case you still need that terrible job.

So here goes, my best and worst jobs:

Best Job - A tough call, but I am going to go with the gig I had helping to implement accounting and finance software for AT&T Saudi Arabia back in the 90s. The cool parts of the job were getting a chance to learn how business really got done, (we had to rename 'bribes' into 'facilitative payments' for example), living and working in the Middle East (much, much more fun than you would imagine), and having my career trajectory completely changed from that point forward. Lots of great memories from that gig.

Worst Job - Again a tough call, as I have had a number of terrible jobs. But the worst was probably the summer job I had between Freshman and Sophomore year of college where I picked orders for grocery and convenience stores in a massive, refrigerated warehouse. And on the graveyard shift as well. Heavy lifting, freezing all the time, sitting outside on a stoop at 4AM to eat 'lunch' and to try and warm up does not equal good times. Sure, there was an occasional bit of fun, (once an entire pallet of orange juice cartons crashed from about 50 feet up), but the other 98.5% of the time there was pretty miserable.

How about you? Feel free to share in the comments your best and worst jobs as well.

Have a fantastic Labor Day Weekend!

CHART OF THE DAY: Whose Labor Market is it Anyway?

There is a simple answer to that question, really. 

The candidates run the current labor market, at least for large, (and growing) swath of managerial, professional, and technical roles. 

Check out this week's Chart of the Day, a look at how recruiters see the labor market - candidate driven or employer driven,  courtesy of the MRI Network's latest recruiter sentiment study, (as always, some pithy commentary from me after the chart)

Wow - pretty simple and clear to see how at least this group of surveyed MRI Network recruiters have seen the labor market shift pretty dramatically in just two and a half years.

From late 2011, when the sentiment was that that the power and leverage in recruiting was about an even split between candidate and employer, to one where now these recruiters see about a 4x advantage for the candidates, this shift will have some pretty profound implications for many HR/talent pros.

Quite simply, offers to candidates with desirable, in-demand skill sets are going to have to get sweeter, and they are going to have to happen faster. Digging in to the MRI data you see that the primary reason candidates can't be closed is that they have accepted a different job offer. Sure, there are plenty of factors at play here, but the lesson is that just like in the market for desirable real estate in New York or San Francisco, the market for top candidates is likely to be super-competitive, with candidates holding signifcant leverage and multiple offers.

One more nugget from the data - candidates accepting counter-offers to remain with their current employer are rising. Whether or not it makes sense to even make counter-offers is definitely subject to debate, but the fact that if you don't at least consider the practice for your in-demand talent, you are likely going to find yourself having to replace at least some of that talent sooner than you might have liked. 

Looking back over this data, and the last few Charts of the Day I have posted and it continues to become more clear - job openings are up, employees are more willing to jump for a better opportunity, the competition for candidates is getting more fierce, and the strategy and tactics you were using as recently as 2011 probably are not going to work in labor markets where the best candidates have all the power.

Have fun and be careful out there.

CHART OF THE DAY: Unemployed workers per job opening

The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) was released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and it showed that US job openings as of May 2014 stood at about 4.6 million, up from 4.5 million in April.

Taking the JOLTS openings data and combining it with gross unemployment data (also from the BLS), and you get the chart below that shows the trend over time in the ratio of unemployed workers per job opening. Take a look at the chart, (from Business Insider) and then some comments from me below.

1. The latest ratio of unemployed workers to job openings is 2.11, the lowest level since early 2008, and extremely lower than the post financial crisis high water mark of almost 7 in mid-2009. 

2. The trend seems to suggest a continued lowering of this ratio, as increased hiring will likely be only partially offset by more entrants into the labor marker, (students leaving school, folks getting coaxed back into the labor market due to improving prospects).

3. As an HR/talent pro, you might start finding for more jobs a relative reduction in the number of applicants for your open positions. Unless you are offering so-called 'good' jobs, have a compelling employer value proposition, or have a proven pipeline of candidates, there will be, at least in aggregate, fewer available people for your jobs. 

4. As a consequence of this labor market tightening, your Econ 101 book will tell you that wages are going to have to begin rising more steeply. Again, this is what the economists predict, but for you, all Economics is local. If indeed you are finding it difficult to attract adequate numbers of qualified candidates, then you are going to have to take a long, hard look at the compensation you are offering for these roles. More and more categories of workers are going to at least perceive they have more leverage, (same goes for existing employees too).

5. With fewer unemployed people per job in the labor pool, it is going to be paramount, even for many entry-level jobs, that you get better at identifying talent from competitors and companies in adjacent industries in order to maximize your candidate flow. It could be the days of simply posting a job online, or placing a Help Wanted sign in the window simply to get the candidates you need are disappearing.

OK, that is it on this from me. What do you think, are you seeing the markets for your open jobs getting tighter?

The ever shrinking middle skilled workforce

If you want to get a cogent, simple summarization of what is going on in the labor market and for the diminishing opportunities and prospects for folks caught in the middle so to speak, take a look at these recent comments and observations from New York Federal Reserve Bank Chair William Dudley:

What Kinds of Jobs Have Been Created During the Recovery?

Firms often change the way they utilize workers and the mix of skills they employ during recessions and recoveries.  The weakening demand during recessions forces firms to look for new ways to be more efficient to cope with hard times.  These adjustments do not affect all workers equally.  Indeed, it’s what we typically think of as middle-skilled workers—for example, construction workers, machine operators and administrative support personnel—that are hardest hit during recessions.  Further, a feature of the Great Recession and indeed the prior two recessions, is that the middle-skill jobs that were lost don’t all come back during the recoveries that follow.  Instead, job opportunities have tended to shift toward higher- and lower-skilled workers.

As we’ll show, these same trends have played out in our region.  While there’s been a good number of both higher-skill and lower-skill jobs created in the region during the recovery, opportunities for middle-skilled workers have continued to shrink.

I believe it is important for us to highlight these job trends and to understand their implications for our region.  There have been significant and long-lasting changes to the nature of work.  As a result, many middle-skilled workers displaced during the recession are likely to find that their old jobs will never come back.  Furthermore, workers are increasingly facing higher skill requirements in order to land a good job.  These dynamics in the labor market present a host of challenges for the region to address.  However one thing is clear: workers will need more education, training and skills to take full advantage of the types of job opportunities being created in our region, as well as across the nation.

Lots to think about from NY Fed President Dudley's remarks, even if they are not surprising, it still seems that we (the big, society-encompassing we) are not doing enough or adequately preparing for this bifurcation in opportunity. The middle skilled jobs that Dudley is referring to were traditionally the majority of jobs in many small and midsize cities in America, and perhaps more importantly, the natural bridge from low-skilled and low paid work into higher skilled and naturally, better paid jobs. Even if an individual himself or herself could not make the leap from construction worker or administrative support into a managerial or exec role, chances were at least decent that their kids would be able to advance, even just a little further up the skill/pay ladder.

I certainly don't have the answers to this problem, but it does seem like better strategies are needed. The commonly cited approaches that call for increased business/community college partnerships for workforce training and development and an emphasis to students that jobs in skilled trades represent solid career opportunities seem valid, but what if via the combination of technology progress, outsourcing, and better tools for automation, most of these middle skilled jobs are simply never coming back?

What then? What if the middle skilled jobs continue to hollow out? What if we eventually become an economy comprised of lots and lots of low-skilled service workers and a relatively few (lucky) high-skilled knowledge and creative workers on the high end?

And what happens when the chasm between these two ends keeps growing larger and larger all the time?

CHART OF THE DAY: What age group has employment rising faster than population?

Quick hit for a busy Tuesday - I wanted to share a chart (and the link to a few more interesting charts), on population growth, labor force growth, and employment growth between 2008 and 2014 for one specific category of workers - those aged 65 and up.

First, here is the chart from Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis, then some observations and free commentary:

Apologies if the chart resolution isn't great, but hopefully you can still make out the key pieces of data. Essentially, while the population growth of those aged 65+ is really high (about 20% of an increase in this group since 2008), the rates of increase in labor force participation and employment are even higher (about 37% and 35% respectively).

Additionally, this is the only age group where the labor force and overall employment rates are outpacing population growth. For example, 16-24 year olds have seen their ranks increase by about 4%, but employment for that group has declined about 6%.

I know I have posted a few times about the general increase in age of the workforce, and the challenges and opportunities this presents to organizations, but it is probably worth thinking about perhaps more frequently than before. Older workers are often overlooked, and can present great sources of experience, insight, and even value, as any folks in this cohort do probably realize that they might be outside of their prime earning years. Also, many will be motivated by the opportunity to share their knowledge and give back as it were to their less experienced workers - which is exactly the kind of on the job learning and mentoring that the next generation desires.  Lastly, you probably don't have to be that concerned, (if at all), with ongoing development and career pathing with this group - they have likely ran most of their career journeys already.

Anyway, this will have to be the last time I go on again about the aging workforce, I think the point has been beaten into submission. Unless I am still blogging say 20 years from now, where I will be screaming about the value of the older workers as far as I can still shout.

Happy Tuesday.