Reminder: On Friday 1/20/23, Resume Webinar - Accelerate Your Job Search, starting 11amET/8amPT

Tomorrow, I'm running a free webinar, Accelerate Your Job Search, on Friday 1/20/23 at 11:00am ET/10:00am CT/9:00am MT/8:00am PT. ?This webinar will show you strategies to make your job search quicker, so you can find your next great opportunity fast.

Last week's overall weekly unemployment claims continued to increase?(9.1% over the prior week), reflecting a weakening economy. After months of mixed economic signals, the past few week's numbers reflect the what has been forecast by over 40 leading indicators since the spring, layoffs and hiring slowdowns.

This isn't a reversal of trends throwing us in a recession without any warning like 2008. Instead, consider this a warning, combined with a little more time to find your next job before hiring freezes and layoffs become widespread. It's going to happen ... not immediately, but soon.

The jobs report is only a small part of today's job market story. There are 3 big stories that are driving the job market now.

1) Companies are still hiring (for now) - In early 2023, The Great Resignation continues to cause massive competition and job shortages for career/management/executive positions. 2023 job competition continues at just below last year's pace, as?70M+ job seekers (currently employed and unemployed) compete for 10M advertised jobs, or?7?competitors for each job.

For the senior staff, management, and executive jobs you're seeking, as 43% of currently employed candidates are flooding the job market, high?levels of job competition in the face of increasing layoffs and hiring slowdowns make it tougher for you to get interviews, advance and find your next job fast.

2) Many leading indicators of a recession continue to flash red, warning of hiring slowdowns. Most CEOs, economists and major banks are forecasting a recession starting in during 2023. We're seeing the indications of hiring slowdowns in this week's unemployment claims report, while LinkedIn's Workforce Report shows that hiring is down almost 5% from October and over 20% compared to a year ago.

3) Confusing employment numbers: The July and August BLS jobs reports showed sizable gains both months, September and October showed a declining rate of job growth, prior to November/December's drop. This is due to the slow increase of high-profile layoffs and hiring slowdowns, and over 40 leading indicators forecasting recession. Weekly unemployment numbers show hiring slowdowns, but continued monthly new hire announcements make it confusing for job seekers to see a trend. At the same time, continued hiring gives candidates a little more time to find your next job before hiring freezes and layoffs become commonplace.

What does all of this mean? It means you need to act NOW to jump-start your job search before the job market slows further, turning to hiring freezes and widespread layoffs.

If your current job isn't all that stable,?your current boss doesn't love you, you'll be at risk in the next 6 months. If you're currently in a project position (rather than a mainline position), you'll be at risk. If you're in HR or recruiting, you'll be at risk. If you have a high salary compared to your company or department, no matter how?irreplaceable?you think you are, you're at risk. If your company is facing financial challenges, high costs, needs to sell/merge or secure VC/IPO funding to grow, you'll be at risk. This risk affects those who are top performers as well as people rated "needs improvement" and everyone in-between.

This mass?competition?of today's job market and need to find a more secure position to ride out the storm affects you if you're currently employed, unemployed, over 40, searching for a raise/promotion/remote position, want a fast job search, changing careers/industries/locations. You're competing against many qualified candidates during a recovering job market.

(The worker shortages you've heard about are primarily concentrated in these types of jobs: restaurant/bar, low wage hourly, frontline manufacturing production, truck drivers, doctors and nurses. But those aren't the jobs you want, are they?)

During my next free webinar on Friday, I'll teach you how to accelerate your job search by showing you how to change your current job search efforts into the efforts that make your job search faster. These efforts will be much more effective whether you're currently employed or in career transition, age 40+ changing careers/industry/location, searching for remote jobs, have long term gaps or have other challenging job search problems.

Join me Friday 1/20/23 at 11:00am ET/8:00am PT, for my free Resume Webinar - Accelerate Your Job Search (enroll at https://x.resumewebinar.com/register for no charge) to learn how to make your 2023 job search twice as fast.

#resume ?#jobs ?#career