"There were 2.5 million jobs available at the end of December, according to the Labor Department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey. That includes all jobs publicly listed by companies and government agencies.
That may seem like a lot given the severity of the recession, but that's down from 3.2 million in December 2008. And it's way below the 4.8 million openings that existed in June 2007, the peak reached before the recession.The picture eased slightly in December from the previous month, as available jobs increased by about 60,000 from November. December's ratio of 6.1 unemployed workers per job was better than November's 6.3, the highest on records dating from 2001."
So my question to you is, with the increase of 60,000 available jobs in December, do you think job openings will continue to increase? Or do you believe that the worst has yet to come?
I like to think that these 60,000 additional jobs are a good sign for our economy and current state as a country. I've heard people say that the recession is over and that things are going to start turning around soon. Although I'm definitely no expert, so perhaps it will be better to just wait and see if this trend continues into January and February. A
ReplyDeleteI feel that employers are being very hesitant to create new openings. Most business owners I know are doing their best to keep their current employees on the payroll. Especially for small businesses I know owners that are taking money from their own savings trying to keep things afloat in hopes of improvement in consumer spending. Honestly I don't think that 60,000 jobs is a number you can really evaluate. It doesn't say anything about the quality of jobs offered and if they are full time or part time. I think there are better metrics to see how America is doing, like say for instance the number of people who have used food banks in the last year
ReplyDeleteCommunity pantries fed by Food Finders Food Bank distributed 3.75 million pounds of food in 2009. That's a big jump from the 2.7 million pounds distributed in 2008, when the food bank was already reporting high usage.
http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100208/NEWSPM/100208022
I don't think we should start celebrating yet. 60,000 new jobs sounds like a good deal, but we should wait and see if the number continues to rise. I'm sure that a lot more than 60,000 jobs have been lost, so the number probably doesn't nearly make up for the damage that's been done. I have a feeling that there won't be a positive increase in job openings.
ReplyDeleteAll I know is last summer I couldn't find a job anywhere. Heck, Walmart wasn't even hiring. Let's hope this trend continues and more and more jobs become available.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Hannah's critique that this article doesn't state the quality or type of jobs: are they full or part-time jobs? I am not sure what the future of the labor market will be but my guess is that job openings will probably increase. The economy is a business cycle so it will most likely pick up again. But the question is when will it pick up and at rate will it start employing people again? A, T
ReplyDeleteI think that from what I have read in other places there are a number of other factors along with the increase in jobs that say the market is on the up swing. One of these factors was total domestic productivity.
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60,000 available jobs is not a big number considering our populations but it’s a bigger number than the ones from the past month. Last year was a pretty bad year for employment and now that the number is increasing we can see that the recession might be over but we can’t get our hopes up until the number increases. Yes, there is more to the numbers listed above; we have to consider several other factors that contribute to the number of unemployment. (E.A)
ReplyDeleteI hope that the increase of available jobs continues but I don't think we are out the recession by any means. Compared to these new 60,000 the amount of jobs lost probably much much greater. There are millions of people who are currently unemployed and it is going to take a turn around of an even larger scale to even start to fix the problem.
ReplyDeleteAll I know is that it's people our age who are supposed to suffer the most due to the downward shift in available jobs.
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