Which Number to Believe? ??
Hello and welcome back to the Recruitonomics Newsletter! This week, we’re looking at an emerging divergence between two very important labor market numbers.
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This Week on Recruitonomics:?
The Diverging Job Numbers – And Which One is Correct
The United States’ labor market has been incredibly strong over the past two years. Well, at least according to one survey. There are two surveys that measure the strength of the labor market: the payroll establishment survey and the current population survey. Both released on the first Friday of the month, these two surveys usually show similar trends. However, in recent months, there has been a divergence. While the payroll survey shows a rapidly growing labor market, the household survey has reported job losses since the end of 2023. The surveys differ in methodology, scope, and coverage. The payroll survey gathers data from over a hundred thousand businesses and focuses on employment, hours, and earnings of non-farm payroll employees, while the household survey samples around 60,000 households and contains information about self-employed workers, agriculture workers, and more. So, which one of these surveys should we trust – and is the labor market really as strong as it seems? Julius Probst, PhD explores this question in his latest from Recruitonomics.???
Read the full article here.
What does this mean for recruiters??
Economic data can be puzzling, and sometimes even contradictory. But understanding this data and knowing where to actually look, can give you a leg ahead in planning out recruiting goals, setting realistic expectations, and knowing what to expect.?
Recruiting Tips:?
A new report from Appcast,?the Stepstone Group, Boston Consulting Group, and The Network, Decoding Global Talent 2024: Work Preferences in the Age of AI, highlights workers’ use of generative AI in their personal and professional lives. With nearly 41% of Americans utilizing this new technology, it is becoming more and more ingrained in our lives. However, American respondents were decidedly unafraid of AI replacing them within their jobs, with only 6% worried about AI making their own jobs unnecessary. Workers are optimistic about the positive changes AI can create in both the workplace and in their personal lives.?
Recently on Recruitonomics:
After a weaker jobs report in April, May’s data completely reversed the trend. The U.S. economy added 272,000 new jobs last month, far above market expectations of 150,000. The unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.0%, but this still marks the 30th month in a row of the unemployment rate being at or below 4%. If this trend continues throughout the summer into the fall, this record will exceed the 35-month record set during the economic boom of the Eisenhower administration.? Overall, the gap between supply and demand is gradually normalizing, as openings and hiring slow while more job seekers reenter the workforce.?
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Read the full article here.
The Eurozone has been plagued by stubbornly high inflation, even as the European Central Bank undergoes a tightening interest rate campaign to combat it. Recently, the ECB has been bothered by the persistent increases in inflation, but many of the factors pushing prices higher are temporary, brought on by local government measures to help their residents combat increased costs of living. They should not detract the ECB from focusing on the broader picture in upcoming interest rate decisions. However, one factor the central bank may have a harder time ignoring is recent wage trends across the Eurozone, especially in Germany. With increased worker bargaining power, wages have continued to grow strongly in various European economies, which could feed into higher inflation. The ECB should ignore these increases as well, though, as real wages (adjusted for inflation) have been largely depressed for some time. Rather than high wage growth, current inflation risks come from geopolitical events, increasing trade and shipping costs, and climate change, all of which are outside the ECB’s control. The ECB should not disregard factors like wage growth completely, but pushing interest rates too high (or keeping rates high for too long) may have more dangerous complications than it is prepared for. As the European Central Bank decided to cut interest rates for the first time since 2019 last Thursday, it seems it may have realized this.?
Read the full article here.
What Recruitonomics is Reading:
We have been watching the healthcare industry particularly closely for the last several years. The demand for labor in the sector has held up like no other. In fact, as the U.S. population continues to age, the demand for healthcare will remain enduringly strong. However, holding onto healthcare workers has gotten more and more difficult following the pandemic, according to research from Axios’ Caitlin Owens.?
Healthcare workers are dissatisfied with the current conditions in the industry and upset with patterns of understaffing and consistent cost cuts. In some cases, these workers are unionizing, attempting to fight for better conditions. In others, these doctors, nurses, home health aids, etc. just quit, citing burnout and poor mental health.?
This is a dangerous trend for Americans and a challenge for healthcare employers: Right as?Americans need productive, content healthcare workers, dark clouds are hovering over the industry.?
?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.