Female Workers are Carrying the Labor Force Recovery
Hello, and welcome back to the Recruitonomics Newsletter! This week’s inflation numbers caused a media stir, like every new piece of inflation data.?
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This Week on Recruitonomics:?
Women Are Fueling The Labor Force Recovery. Can It Last?
At the onset of the pandemic, females in the workforce suffered. From February to April 2020, prime-age labor force participation among women plummeted 3.5 percentage points, from 77% to 73.5%. As the pandemic’s economic impacts shifted, these participation rates both ticked back up slightly, but in 2022 female workers made a big recovery. However, further increases in participation rates face challenges in 2023, including the shortage of childcare workers that is making it more difficult and more expensive for parents of young children to balance responsibilities at work and home.?
Read the full article here.
What does this mean for recruiters??
The return of women to the workforce is great news, but the childcare pressures that young families face will disproportionately hurt women. As recruiters, have frank conversations with candidates about their childcare needs, and look into different childcare benefits you can offer to incentify the final candidate!?
Inflationship Status: It’s Complicated
Inflation has seeped into our economy and taken over public discourse. And, though we are all obsessed with inflation and where it lies, it continues to confuse and infuriate us. Looking at price increases one way can show cooling, another way spells something more troubling. In short, it’s complicated. For instance, in January,? prices were up 6.35% from the year before – the smallest increase since 2021. Simultaneously, though, prices increased 0.5% month-over-month and the disinflation of 0.1% in December was reversed. Disinflation may not be as “immaculate” as we previously believed.
Read the full article here.
What does this mean for recruiters??
The latest inflation report suggests that there may be more pain in the short run. Additionally, the stickiness of “supercore” inflation may worry the Fed – the price pressures of the tight labor market are becoming increasingly obvious. Therefore, the interest rate hikes might continue for some time as the Fed continues to try to cool the labor market.?
Recruiting Tips:?
Are you already feeling lost in 2023’s labor market? As the market for talent remains tight even as key industries slow, many recruiters find themselves wondering how to navigate the growing disconnect between economic signals and the talent landscape as they prepare for the new year. Appcast’s Top Recruiting Trends for 2023 whitepaper aims to make sense of this confusion by digging deep into the data, analyzing the market, and talking to hiring organizations about their experiences on the ground. Download your copy today to receive key insights on what to expect from recruiting in 2023. Just a month and a half in, and it’s already been an intense year for the job market!
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Recently on Recruitonomics:
In 2022, the business and consumer outlook deteriorated significantly in the U.K. The economy was hit by a double whammy last year: the highest inflation rate since the 1970s due to the energy crisis and a severe economic growth slowdown as the negative effects of Brexit started to materialize. Consumer confidence thus plunged to a record low at the end of 2022 and remains significantly lower than at any point during the Great Recession or the 2020 COVID crash. Simply put, consumers are really depressed!? And, unlike other advanced economies, hard economic data in the U.K. has also been quite abysmal. The economic outlook for 2023 and beyond is mediocre as well. While the BoE has recently revised their outlook, they are still forecasting a shallow recession for 2023 with another year of economic stagnation thereafter.?
Read the full article here.
In 2022, there was something of a “vibecession” in the United States, which had the chance to create a true recession. The idea is that deteriorating perceptions of the economy (bad vibes) induces an actual contraction in economic activity. A recession is then, ultimately, a psychological phenomenon: People lose confidence that future economic growth will sustain their current job and income, companies expect sales to falter from current levels, people spend less and companies then pull back on investment. And there you have it: recession as a self-fulfilled prophecy. But, in 2022, the hard data stayed strong while the soft data deteriorated.
Read the full article here.
Soft economic data – economic and business surveys – seem to validate that the German economy is in a tough spot. Ifo, one of the largest economic institutes in Germany, publishes various business climate indicators that suggest unease in the private sector. The business climate indicators have also been indicating a severe economic downturn, especially for manufacturing and construction. Somewhat surprisingly though, hard economic data does not corroborate the story of an economic downturn yet. While the Ifo index has plunged, GDP figures have been holding up quite well despite the massive commodity price shock from the war in Ukraine. The German economy, like the U.S., has held up strong despite fears of disaster.?
Read the full article here.
The tight labor market and competitive nature of recruiting since 2020 sent key costs like cost-per-application and cost-per-click skyrocketing. The imbalance between supply and demand has upended the recruitment industry, but some changes in 2022 may indicate that brighter skies are ahead. After two years of dismal participation, the prime-age labor force expanded by 0.5 percentage points (2.5 million workers) from December 2021 to December 2022. What lured these job seekers back??
Read the full article here.
What Recruitonomics is Reading:
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but lately it’s been hard to stomach the price of that early morning sandwich. Unfortunately, this meal has been especially affected by inflationary pressures in the past couple months. Eggs were up 8.5% from the month before in January due to a deadly avian flu outbreak. Juices and cereal, too, have seen modest price increases due to storms and the war in Ukraine disrupting supply. The Wall Street Journal recommends skipping the meal altogether, but I recommend choosing a couple strips of bacon or a breakfast sausage – perhaps not the healthiest meal, but prices fell 0.1% from December. For a healthier version, a piece of toast and peanut butter also looks inflation-friendly!?
?More Data & Insights:
Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for next week's Recruitonomics Newsletter and check out Recruitonomics.com for more data-driven insights.