How's the US labor market

[Jeff964]

What's your view toward the current labor market conditions in the US? With the Q2 GDP up on strong government spending, I was wondering how the consumers are doing economically and job security-wise. As the the economists say, the consumer spending make up 2/3 of the GDP.

[turbo6bar]

As you mentioned, the GDP is heavily tied to consumer spending. If mortgage interest rates continue to rise, mortgage refinancing will fall and consumer spending may take a dive. The refinancing boom may continue or evaporate. No one knows. If consumer confidence does not improve AND debt interest rates go up, the economy might become much worse.

So, I think the economy and job market are in many ways tied to the real estate market. Some have said the booming real estate market is one of the few beacons to prop up the sore economy.

Personally, I am not worried about my job, but that's mainly because I'm self-employed. I do have concerns about my clients. If they lose their jobs, I will be affected greatly.

Unfortunately, a healthy US economy requires a lot of consumer spending and acquisition of even greater levels of consumer debt. That's not good, in my opinion.

jurgen

[pwd72s]

What do I know? Other than Oregon is number ONE in the nation..in UN employment. But our legislature is busily working to fix things. The Democrat liberals want to increase the state budget by $1.5 billion...those nasty Republicans? Those horrible right wing conservatives? They want to be merciless. They propose slashing & cutting, hurting the elderly, making sure we have no police & fire. You see, they suggest only a $1.3 billion increase. In the meantime, one of the State's large employers, Louisiana Pacific, is about to pull it's home office out of Portland....but the State is offering tax incentives in order to get it to stay, while telling we peons that taxes have nothing to do with the fact that employers are fleeing Oregon.
All that said, I think the overall USA economy is enjoying a rebound..overall growth isn't fantastic, but it's better than it was 6-7 months ago...and in many states, employment and consumer confidence are up.

[Hockey fan]

PWD - Don't forget the new county tax here in Portland. The only county imposed tax west of the Mississippi I believe. I know of several small business owners here who have moved across the river to Vancouver. We also lost Columbia Sportswear which says a little something about the business climate here.

Jeff

[widebody911]

I was this ("") close to refinancing, but then someone hit the NOS button on rates. I think the sudden interest rate increase is the laces coming off the other shoe, which is about to drop.

OTOH, refinance-based consumer spending could only go on so long; without the jobs to pay off all those mortgages, it's kinda pointless.

[350HP930]

Well, the last time I was looking for a job was December and January, not exactly the best months to base a judgement on.

Now that I am rather actively looking around again all I can tell you is that it is better than 6 months ago but it still looks pretty bad.

When major corporations are looking for engineers in my area with at least 10 years of experience for only $35K-$45K a year I think they are telling us what they think about the labor market right now.

A few of my friends who still have some nice and cushy IT jobs are starting to really worry because their employer, Time Warner Cable, due to parent company problems and the recent split with Bright House is getting ready to consolidate and lay off a lot of its IT and telecom workers.

Now the very same people who were telling me to hold my chin up cause things would eventually get better are now asking me for job search advice.

The more I look for IT work the happier I become that I can go out and spin wrenches for about $50K a year if I have to.

[jyl]

The official labor market data shows this is a "jobless recovery" similar to the early 1990s. (1) The economy is growing, as measured by GDP, but not fast enough to create net new jobs. (2) Most of the recent GDP growth is in a sense illusory since it comes from government defense-related expenditures, not a broad-based growth across the economy. (3) Companies can't get enough revenue growth so they have to get their profit growth from expense reductions. Having already squeezed their capital-related expenses very hard, they are squeezing hard on labor-related expenses. (4) We are seeing another wave of outsourcing - instead of outsourcing our auto manufacture and steel production as in prior decades, the US is outsourcing back-office operations, call centers, tech support, etc.

When do we get to robust growth, the kind that creates net new jobs, raises wages, triggers new capital spending, etc? Whoever knows, please tell me. I think of the US economy as having four legs: (A) consumer spending, (B) corporate spending (including capital expenditure), (C) foreign spending (aka exports), and (D) government spending (net spending, that is government expenditure minus government income aka taxes). I have to think (A) is getting tapped out. (B) is no longer getting worse, which is a start to getting better I guess. (C) is crummy because the Europeans are in an even worse economic position than us (referring mostly to the combined Germany/France/UK). (D) is being cranked out like a firehose, for various reasons. So we have two solid legs and two weak ones.

The other thing that worries me is that the current "recovery" seems to be awfully dependent on the financial market. If you look at the leading indicators, for the most part the positive ones are financial markets-related (e.g. the stock market rally). Financial markets are volatile and can turn on a dime.

Anyway, enough rambling. My personal perspective is that I've gotten through 3 years of serious retrenchment in my industry (at my company, headcount in my type of function got cut back by about 1/3, peak to trough) and the job market is getting ever so slightly better. As in, from "really bad" to "quite bad". Like 350HP930 I have a fallback profession, which is good.

[JavaBrewer]

Everyone needs to have a "fall back profession" - its just common sense. If push comes to shove I'll be bartending again - pay was pretty good and I had my day's free. People love to drink and when times are bad they drink more. Don't get me wrong though I would not be happy. I would spend my days retooling to get back into that cushy IT position.

350HP930 - Engineers w/10 years at $35K-$45K? Post a job description for me. My friend Emigdio is a landscaper and makes more than $35K cutting lawns.

[350HP930]

I now realize that some of those positions were only looking for 5+ years of experience after going back and looking around again.

Here a few examples I just dug up . . .

http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.asp?did=JZ4ZZ7016YL7L3862L

http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.asp?did=JZ7S66XBM2N7ZDGD9L

http://jobsearch.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=18655972

http://jobsearch.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=18701718

http://www.thinkjobs.com/Think.nsf/Location/E9C8ABABA15AC35785256D5C006FDB1C

http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.asp?did=JY38T6HM2TS2VGX18S

[JavaBrewer]

The last one looked reasonable. {edit} oops, read further and missed the 10yr exp. The job desc. is way too fine grained, I'm skeptical of that one. {/edit} You had one in there for a CNC machinst/programmer that was $10-$17/hr. I did that type of work in the early 80's on a Fanuc machine. These guys are skilled but not exactly the degreed professionals we were referring to. Some of my co-workers only had high school diplomas. Back then I made $8.00/hr but had worked there for 4 years already.

I went to Monster and did a search for "java" in California-San Diego CA and got back 96 hits. Some jobs were approaching $80-$90K with 5-10 years experience. I last checked this site about 8 months ago and got about 1/3 that many hits. More queries "software" = 800 hits, "C++" = 94 hits, "unix" = 105 hits.

The same search (java) in Tampa FL yielded 31 hits - but none that I looked at included salary.

[350HP930]

I recently inteviewed for an IT management position with a large chain of medical clinics here in the Tampa area.

During the inteview I was asked the typical 'do you have any questions?' once they were finished asking me about my qualifications and telling me about the company.

Curosity got the better of me so I said 'do you know how many people applied for this position and how many people you are interviewing?'.

She answered 'well, we recieved about 500 applications and we are inteviewing 6 final candidates'.

Well, it made me feel pretty good to know I made the cut but to make a long story short I did not get the job. In addition to the tough competition I suspect that my lack of health care industry experience was probably a contributing factor in my not getting the job.

I keep marching on and I have a couple other interviews lined up for this week but I know that there is a lot of competition for the work that is out there.

[HarryD]

Originally posted by 350HP930
I recently inteviewed for an IT management position with a large chain of medical clinics here in the Tampa area.

During the inteview I was asked the typical 'do you have any questions?' once they were finished asking me about my qualifications and telling me about the company.

Curosity got the better of me so I said 'do you know how many people applied for this position and how many people you are interviewing?'.

She answered 'well, we recieved about 500 applications and we are inteviewing 6 final candidates'.

Well, it made me feel pretty good to know I made the cut but to make a long story short I did not get the job. In addition to the tough competition I suspect that my lack of health care industry experience was probably a contributing factor in my not getting the job.

I keep marching on and I have a couple other interviews lined up for this week but I know that there is a lot of competition for the work that is out there.

Man, I know where you at at. On 1/31/2003 I was laid off. At that time, very few jobs appropriate for me in terms of skill sets needed (facility engineer/project engineer/project maanger) and to even have something to look at, I ignored the salary issue. On 6/2 I satarted a new job with the State. Big cut in pay but at least I no longer have to make those huge monthly COBRA payments and watch my savings dwindle. So far, we seem to be getting by but when things pick up, I will be tempeted to look else where to get whole again.

You may want to look at some of the Government jobs more closely. If you are getting by now on unemployment, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Best of luck.

[speeder]

Harry, What are COBRA payments?

[Hockey fan]

Originally posted by speeder
Harry, What are COBRA payments?

COBRA is a program that when a job leaves you, your previous employer is required to still let you keep your health insurance coverage through them, however now you're on the hook for the monthly bill.

Jeff

Former COBRA victim

[350HP930]

Hah, unemployment? After paying into the system for years and getting laid off with a $60K/yr salary my florida unemployment check ended up being about $250 a week. That didn't even pay the rent.

During the a month and a half I looked for IT or engineering work my credit cards I used to make up the difference maxed out. For this reason it was time to get any work I could so I ended up getting a job as a tech at the area Porsche dealership and also did some IT project work on the side. After months of nothing it was nice to see that I was still very appreciated as a technician though I had been out of the business since I graduated college.

I'm greedy and would prefer clean work if possible so I'm hoping something works out here in the next week or two before my contract work ends.

If not I already have an open offer to drag all my tools a couple miles down the road to the caddy dealership and set up shop. I'm just hoping it doesn't come to that.

Speaking of CORBA payments I was able to afford only one month of insurance since it ended up being about $500 to maintain my family policy.

When faced with paying rent, car payment and maintaining a squeaky clean credit rating my family joined the ranks of the uninsured.

[Dan Morton]

My advice is to consider self-employment. There are lots of opportunities for people that are willing to go out on their own. For those of us that have been laid off, we all know that we will eventually land another job, only to worry about the next layoffs, not to mention the BS involved with working for someone else.

I opted to take a package to leave AOL in January, rather than find another meaningless marketing job in a company that is still in a lot of trouble. Since then, I have spent 5+ months looking at buying a business, and starting a business. There are lots of resources out there and you may be surprised how little money it takes to go into business for yourself. I have been working with a business coach who has been extremely helpful in listenting to what I 'think' I want and presenting potential business opportunities for me to explore (franchises, consulting, etc.). If anyone wants to learn more, shoot me a private message.

Oh, and no, this isn't an Multi-level marketing scheme!!

-Dan

[turbo6bar]

I have to agree with Dan. Self-employment requires the right personality, though. I'm self-motivated and have decent business sense, but for others it can be a real challenge to succeed. I do not consider myself a team player (i.e. don't like to bust my tail so someone else gets the pat on the back). However, real estate investing seems to suit me really well. Just be aware that working for yourself does not necessarily mean you choose your hours. In many instances self-employed guys and gals work a ton of hours.

I excel in stressful situations. I enjoy the great responsibility, and I absolutely love the fact when something goes wrong I have no one else to blame, but myself.

jurgen

[pwd72s]

Originally posted by Hockey fan
PWD - Don't forget the new county tax here in Portland. The only county imposed tax west of the Mississippi I believe. I know of several small business owners here who have moved across the river to Vancouver. We also lost Columbia Sportswear which says a little something about the business climate here.

Jeff

It's for good reason that some refer to California, Oregon, and Washington as "the left coast".

[widebody911]

Originally posted by pwd72s
It's for good reason that some refer to California, Oregon, and Washington as "the left coast".

Yes, we liberals fled here to escape the conservative nazis on the other coast, then the bastards found out the weather was nicer here, and have hated us ever since.

[island911]

FWIW:

The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 6, 2003; 9:02 AM


BERLIN –– Germany's jobless rate rose to 10.4 percent in July with 94,500 more people out of work than in the previous month amid stagnation in Europe's largest economy, according to government figures released Wednesday.