Job Openings Plunged by One-Quarter Last Year

The Associated Press ^ | February 9, 2010 | CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER AP Economics Writer

[mdittmar]

Job openings fell by nearly one-quarter last year as layoffs also soared

Finding a job got much tougher last year, as the number of available openings fell by nearly one quarter.

At the same time, the unemployed population soared by more than one-third, leaving more laid-off workers competing for fewer jobs.

All told, there were 6.1 unemployed workers in December, on average, for every available position, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday.

That's a sharp increase from 3.4 jobless workers per opening in December of 2008, and much worse than the 1.7 unemployed people per opening in December 2007, when the recession began.

[mdittmar]

Bush,ah republicans,ahh,yea bush,Hope,Change,bipartisan Jobs Bill

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

The stats are far worse than reported. Government reports are LIES.

[ClearCase_guy]

That's OK. Consumoption is up, GDP is skyrocketing, and inventories have been re-stocked.

It's all good.

[Frantzie]

Hope & Change from the Kenyan-born Indonesian muslim marxist.

[dfwgator]

The “Potemkin Village” Economy.

[hennie pennie]

FYI, if interested, here are some more grim factual statistics about job hunting in this AP article.

[tobyhill]

Companies have figured out that they can produce just as much with less workers.

[DonaldC]

If only the banks would make loans.. -obama

[carjic]

Thanks. This is no suprise to me. Very hard to stand out right now.

[hennie pennie]

I was in a used bookstore last week, and checked out their resume/jobhunt section, and in one book I opened up, it stated that fully ninety percent of all job openings are NEVER advertised.

This was a book from years ago, BEFORE the financial collapse, so nowadays, I'm sure that at least 96 percent of jobs are never once advertised anywhere.

The method of the book was to cold call a couple dozen different potential employers everyday, and the author said that by following his method of cold calls, one could ensure getting a minimum of three DECENT interviews every three weeks.

I have no idea if cold calls via phone work nowadays, but I've read several articles that most employers do NOT want to post any job openings anywhere, because suddenly they have over a thousand resumes, so instead they simply choose among the "go getters" who dropped off resumes & filled out job applications, even though there were no openings when they did so.

[Thunder90]

Actually, a door-to-door sales approach may work, in which you go and hand HR directors your resume and give a short pitch about yourself.

[Thunder90]

If you can get the president or CEO of a company, or the GM of the branch, that is even better than dealing with HR.

[hennie pennie]

Yes, that's precisely what I've read, most businesses have several dozen applications on file from WALK INs, and do not want to advertise a job opening, because suddenly they have to deal with a deluge of thousands of resumes --- that is really a time consuming mess, so they simply choose someone who made a favorable impression when they stopped in and asked to fill out an application although there were no openings at the time.

[wally_bert]

Sounds like where I work. Too bad the majority of what is there are borderline special needs types.

[algernonpj]

I have never seen such a bad job market!

In my experience, here in NJ, none of the traditional go-getter approaches work. If you call, you get voice mail. If you show up in person, all duded up, you have to leave your resume at the guard’s desk. That leaves eMail and snail mail. eMail probably goes to the great virtual black hole & snail mail probably hits the circular file.

Any jobs created go so fast; I got a call to eMail my resume ASAP - as I pressed the send button, I got an eMail to the effect - sorry job already gone. Friends who are looking out for me are loosing their jobs.

The only two people I know who got hired over the past two years, knew the president of the company.

Yet, and note MSM does not publicize this, per PEW ~8 million illegal aliens have jobs, and 125,000 new legal workers arrive in the country each month for a total of 1.5 million per year. Illegal aliens not only compete for landscaping and construction jobs; they also compete for high tech professional jobs.