Why is hiring so much lower than new job openings?

Hot Air ^ | August 17, 2013 | Jazz Shaw

[2ndDivisionVet]

Both Dr. James Joyner and Bloomberg’s Peter Orszag are looking into a rather puzzling pair of statistics from the labor market this week. Posted job openings around the country are up roughly 50%, but new hires have only risen by 5%. What can account for the disparity in these numbers? It would seem that if companies are posting that many more openings, surely hiring should be on the rise in comparable numbers, and yet it’s not happening.

Orszag:

To get some sense of how significant this is, consider that if, since June 2010, hiring had risen a third as much as advertised jobs have (rather than only a 10th), and nothing else were different, job creation would be roughly 500,000 higher each month, and the unemployment rate would already be back to normal levels.

So what explains the yawning gap between jobs open and jobs filled?

Joyner:

Orszag floats four theories that have been offered:

There’s a mismatch between the skills needed and those available on the market Employers are offering wages too low to attract applicants Jobs are mostly being filled with internal candidates Firms have reduced their “recruiting intensity,” and just aren’t that excited to fill openings

He argues pretty good reasons to discount any of these as likely explanations for much of the gap. He concludes,

Regardless of the true explanation, it’s still good news that more jobs are being advertised. That wouldn’t be happening if the economic outlook were entirely bleak.

But, if nobody’s hiring, the economic outlook is pretty damned bleak for the unemployed and underemployed.

As with most cases when we attempt to analyze a trend taking place involving tens of millions of people, I suspect the “answer” isn’t just one driving phenomenon, but rather a combination of factors.....

[willyd]

In tech you will see posts like this:

Searching for highly skilled programmer with PHP, MySQL, Flash, HTML, CSS, Photoshop, Illustrator, SEO, Javascript, Java, Net Beans, C++, ASP, C#. Must be willing to work 80+ hours per week to complete the job on time and under budget.

Must have a portfolio and be willing produce part of our project for free in order to prove you have the skills.

$15.00 per hour. No H1 Visas please.

[Cyber Liberty]

Unlike the lowly slob at Home Depot and others making 10 bucks an hour...

The lowly slob making 10 bucks an hour at Home Despot drives a fork-lift around customers. That's why he gets drug tested.

If drug testing is such a wonderful thing, I want to see a lot more of it: Congressmen, Senators, President, Secretaries, Generals. Oh, Welfare recipients first in line. They're most likely to redirect their handouts to the black market for drugs. Watch them pee, can't have cheating.

[TomGuy]

I learned during my working years that many companies list jobs, even though they did not have job openings or they already had someone in mind to fill those jobs.

One reason was to explore the available talent as they worked on prosals for new contracts. They could get a ‘feel’ for how many potential qualified employees were in a particular area.

Another reason was to fulfill state and/national regulations, such as a job had to be posted x number of days to the general public before it could be filled.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[2ndDivisionVet]

FReepmail me your resumes, I’ll try to find something. Been a career counselor and recruiter since 1983.

[Mike Darancette]

Job opens up, illegal get job and since he is not reflected in the labor pool the number of unemployed does not go down. Then the guy can’t hack the job; Terminate and repeat.

[dragnet2]

Isn’t it funny, all these employers drug test, yet cops, government public school teachers, the congress, POTUS, Mayors, city council members, county commissioners, judges, etc, are not randomly drug tested. Unlike the lowly slob at Home Depot and others making 10 bucks an hour...I find this very odd.

And cops with guns? Judges passing down sentences making decisions affecting many peoples entire lives?

How about Potus, congress, they mayor and city council where you live? Do these people's decisions not affect hundreds, thousands and millions?

Hello?

How about the drug testers? Did you know they are not randomly drug tested, yet they have your live and many others in their hands?

But randomly drug test home depot boy?

What's up with that Mr. Liberty?

[dragnet2]

I went to a meeting one time, to a facility that was going to perform random drug testing on a group of low wage people...In the meeting I asked them if they randomly drug tested their own people performing the drugs tests on others...

They said of course not, and gave me a real arrogant look...

This is what I'm talking about..

[Cyber Liberty]

I don’t like drug testing. I don’t like the “drug war.” But I am simply pointing out the rational behind wanting the Home Depot guy being tested for drugs. What more can I say, Mr. Dragnet?

I think I listed for testing about everybody you say I’d exempt from testing, so I’ll come back later on, if at all. I’m just not in the mood for folks who don’t read what I wrote.

[TomGuy]

That reminded me of a technical editor job I applied for about 15 years ago.

In order to check my capabilities, they handed me a 100 page manual and wanted me to mark it up.

Yeah, right. They wanted me to mark it up, so that they didn’t need to hire some. I had had some similar experiences with other potential ‘employers’.

I marked up the first 10 pages and wrote a note that that would give them an idea of my capabilities. Of course, I never heard from them again.

==

Another time, I was being interviewed by a guy who wanted to start of Technical Writing Department in his small company. He asked me all kinds of questions and had me walk him through the process I would use to establish the department.

He was writing furiously as I talked.

At the conclusion of the interview, he said they would let me know.

Next I ‘heard’ was an ad in the newpaper wanting someone to set up a Technical Writing Department. The requirements were to set it up according to certain steps. Ironically, most of those steps were word-for-word how I defined them to the guy a few weeks earlier. The salary listed was about half of what I told them I would need, and the newspaper ad put the salary in the range of a glorified clerk’s salary.

[dragnet2]

Wait a minute Mr. Liberty, you’re all for randomly testing low wage home depot employees but not randomly tesing judges, cops with guns, school teachers, congress and the drug testers themselves?

[Nowhere Man]

Absolutely...No wonder most young people no longer hardly try...Private sector dead stagnate wages, cost of schooling through the flipping roof, with most colleges jammed with foreigners, no benefits, no medical....In fact those things will soon take 50 percent of whatever they make...

Add in the fact the government/globalist are devaluing our dollar, worth less and less, as the price of nearly everything in the U.S. goes up and up and up...

For most young people in the U.S., their futures are totally 100 percent screwed...

I was talking about this with a lot of my friends. A few of my best friends are homosexual and one of them told me, "I'm glad I don't have any kids or want them, I mean, what type of jobs will there be for them when they grow up." I replied where my father and I, "wonder where the little kids of today are going to work and find jobs." It's bad enough for us middle agers and the people following us.

Another friend at our little round table said, "we will have a future like Star Trek where everybody will get a standard guaranteed wage and a basic place to live and to get beyond that, you will have to work for it." I don't know about that, but who knows, if we keep head in the current direction, we could end up there, especially if and when robots start doing the work.

All I know is that both sides of the political isle sold us out. The Democrats with their restrictive laws like the EPA, OSHA and so on along with high taxes and the other side, the Republicans (RINO's) and some Democrat who sold out to the highest bidder with the "free trade" agreements where it hurts us but helps our adversaries. In an ideal situation, free trade is the way to go but we do not live in an ideal world. Nations are like people, need to look out for their own interests and I do see that we as a nation are not doing that. We do need to bring the jobs home with a combination of reduced regulations to a sensible level and reduced taxes and on the other side of the coin, dare I say, tarriffs.

We also need ways to deal with the massive mental depression that many people go through when they are put out of work and are trying to look for work but get passed over. I even heard of an interesting idea where people who are 45 and over, would be given a option to take a million dollars, tax free, if they would either stop looking for work or give up their jobs to open it up to the younger people along with giving up social security and invest part of the money into a private retirement plan. They would also be barred from entering the work force for 10 years although if they are able to, start a business to create jobs. We were just brainstorming this one night.

Ping to CNN, we need to bring the jobs back now.

[Pan_Yan]

Both Dr. James Joyner and Bloomberg’s Peter Orszag are looking into a rather puzzling pair of statistics from the labor market this week.

Problem #1: how much do you trust government statistics?

[Nowhere Man]

I happen to be one of them. I applied to many so far nothing. Well I’ll just keep moving forward some how.

Me too, and I'm looking for part-time for the time being since I have to take care of Mom who is fighting breast cancer. Then I'd like to go full-time after she is better, she is doing quite good now but needs extra care.

[dragnet2]

Jobs are not coming back and the democrats and repulicans are all riding in the same limo...It's the global bankers and the super wealthy elite making our dollar worthless...

Ya got half the adults in this country working part time now...We all know why...Half the country is making mid-1990s wages....Now their told they have no more benefits or medical and now they have to pay thousands for that out of their phony pay checks...

All this while the cost of everything climbs up and up...

We're screwed bad...

[FAA]

“I learned during my working years that many companies list jobs, even though they did not have job openings or they already had someone in mind to fill those jobs.”

B-I-N-G-O

I know for a fact that many companies post their openings for a minimum of two weeks even if they already know who they want to hire or if they’re going to hire at all. A job posting does not equate a legitimate “open” position for which a company is looking to hire an outsider to fill it. This may be a Federal labor thing, I don’t know.

I was out of work for almost a year in 2009. I submitted literally thousands of resumes and would receive a response about every 200 or so. After 10 months I was lucky enough to find a job as a temp employee making 2/3’s what I had been making prior. Spent a year there and then found a regular full-time job making a little more but it was much more stable. Been there three years and now it looks like I’m going to move on to my current employer’s parent company with a healthy raise.

It’s only taken me 4 years to get back to what I was making 8 years ago. But, Hell, plenty others have it worse.

[Chode]

or the welfare RATS sucking the public teat dry...

[Delta 21]

[Nowhere Man]

I get sick of these sneering Freepers who act like these companies are so noble and there is something wrong with our work ethic. The traditional way of working your way up isn’t nearly as easy at it used to be.

Agreed. They do not understand that the paradigm has shifted. If this was 1969/70 where we had 3.5% to 4% unemployment or even the 1980's after Reagan kicked in, I would be the first to yell, "get a job!" However, now, I am not. The rot really started in the 1970's but it started to gain a little speed from the mid 1990's and then in the 200x era, kicked into high gear. As I get older, there are no true "white hats" really. There are a good number of "black hats" and "grey hats" of varying hues.

I've talked to many of my generation, I'm 47, middle aged. One mechanic I know, he graduated a few years before me, so he's pushing 50, he said, "if the doc says that I have cancer, I'd by happy and will just go and check out." That's sad. B-( I still believe in fighting to stay alive, heck, Mom will be 75 this week and she's fighting breast cancer to stay alive and she is doing quite well and I hope that continues. It's a shame that many people feel like my mechanic friend. B-(

[Nowhere Man]

80+ hours a week, crap, I’d be falling asleep driving my Blazer home. The downside is who’s gonna take care of Mom and my two cats if I go out in a flaming fireball on the highway where there ain’t enough of me to pick up with a spatula. I’m not against working hard, but geez, there is a limit.