FOX News Interview of Steven Rothberg: How to Find Unadvertised Job Openings

FOX News channel co-host of “Fox and Friends” Steve Doocey interview of CollegeRecruiter.com Founder Steven Rothberg about how to find the 80 percent of job openings which are unadvertised.

Information Technology Grads Finding Job Hunt Difficult in U.K. Too

Stephen Riley of IntaPeople

Comparing the first 11 months of 2010 to the same period last year, the specialist IT recruitment agency IntaPeople found that I.T. graduate vacancies in the UK have increased by almost 80 people. However, it believes that a large proportion of these roles are being handed to more experienced job seekers instead. Stephen Riley, director at IntaPeople, said that while “it is encouraging that I.T. graduate vacancies are on the up, we estimate that graduates are being overlooked for these opportunities around 30 percent of the time.” Riley continued, ““A difficult economy has seen skilled I.T. professionals applying for roles that would usually be considered too junior for them. Although many employers set out with the intention of taking on fresh talent, they often find it hard to resist these more experienced applicants – especially if they are available at a similar salary level.”

Research from the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) recently showed that unemployment among I.T. graduates has grown from 13.7 to 16.3 percent over the course of the year. “The I.T. arena is as fast paced as ever, and the UK needs to be careful that it doesn’t fall behind the rest of Europe by neglecting a whole generation of workers,” Riley added. “Experience is always attractive, but upcoming talent will play an equally important role in supporting the country’s economic recovery. Firms therefore need to do whatever they can to see through their graduate recruitment plans and help aspiring IT professionals into work.”

IT recruitment agency IntaPeople found that 2010’s top I.T. graduate requirement has been for .NET developers, followed closely by I.T. support workers.

One Job Board Owner’s Outlook for 2011

There’s no doubt that 2009 and 2010 were pretty difficult years for CollegeRecruiter.com along with virtually every other job board. Most estimates are that our industry lost 60 to 70 percent of its revenue yet we also doubled our market share so as the economy continues to (slowly) recover, job boards will end up being stronger than they were prior to the economic and employment market meltdown.

We’re seeing significantly more interest and significantly larger proposals now than we saw at this time in 2009 and late 2009 was significantly better than late 2008. So we’re somewhat optimistic. I think that the phrase “cautiously optimistic” best describes our attitude toward recruitment advertising in general and the portion of that business that we capture.

One of the reasons that our industry has doubled its market share is that many of the sites have done a really, really good job of using these couple of years of downtime to greatly improve their offerings. That hasn’t been the case with some industries. So the value that we deliver to our employer clients has increased significantly and many of them see that. We will need to continue to battle against the “job boards are dead mythology,” but I’m not terribly concerned about that as employers with larger or more difficult hiring needs will soon discover that social media and other alternatives to job boards are valuable but no more the silver bullet solution than job boards were when we essentially came into existence in the mid-1990′s.

Private Sector Employment Up 93,000 in November, 10th Consecutive Monthly Gain

Gary Butler, President and Chief Executive Officer of ADP

Non-farm Private Employment Highlights:

• Total employment: +93,000
• Small businesses (1-49 employees) = +54,000
• Medium businesses (50-499 employees) = +37,000
• Large businesses (500+ employees) = +2,000
• Goods-producing sector = +14,000
• Service-providing sector = +79,000
• Manufacturing industry = +16,000

According to the ADP Report, employment in the service-providing sector rose by 79,000 in November, the tenth consecutive monthly gain. Employment in the goods-producing sector rose by 14,000, the first monthly increase since March 2007. Construction employment dropped by 3,000 during November, the smallest decline since June 2007, and manufacturing employment increased by 16,000.

“Although most segments of the U.S. private sector have experienced some positive job growth recently, the unemployment rate has remained stagnant for around eighteen months,” said Gary C. Butler, President and Chief Executive Officer of ADP. “Most businesses still have little reason to add to their payrolls due to the ongoing uncertainty in the economy. To support job creation, our nation’s policymakers should do their part to create an environment of reasonable economic certainty by clearly defining key tax and regulatory policies. Reduced economic uncertainty, along with appropriate near term incentives for businesses to invest and expand, will encourage businesses to hire.”

According to Joel Prakken, Chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC, “This month’s ADP National Employment Report shows an acceleration of employment and suggests the nation’s employment situation is brightening somewhat. November’s gain in private-sector employment is the largest in three years. This is the tenth consecutive month of gains, which have averaged 47,000 during that period. Nevertheless, employment gains of this magnitude are not sufficient to lower the unemployment rate, which likely will remain above 9% for all of 2011. Furthermore, given modest GDP growth in the second and third quarters, and the usual lag of employment behind GDP, it would not be surprising to see several more months of only moderate gains in employment even as the economic recovery gathers momentum.”

“Large businesses, defined as those with 500 or more workers, increased by 2,000 while employment among medium-size businesses, defined as those with between 50 and 499 workers, increased by 37,000. Employment among small-size businesses, defined as those with fewer than 50 workers, increased by 54,000,” said Prakken.

The matched sample used to develop the ADP National Employment Report was derived from ADP data which, during the twelve-month period through June 2010, averaged over 340,000 U.S. business clients and represented over 21 million U.S. employees. This approximately represents the size of the matched sample used this month.

Small Business Highlights:

Due to the important contribution small businesses make to economic growth, employment data that is specific to businesses with fewer than 50 employees will be reported in the ADP Small Business Report® each month. The ADP Small Business Report is a subset of the ADP National Employment Report.

• Total small business employment: +54,000
• Goods-producing sector: +5,000 small business jobs
• Service-providing sector: +49,000 small business jobs

“Small businesses, defined as those with fewer than 50 workers, increased by 54,000 during November. Small business employment has now increased for nine consecutive months, and this month’s increase is the largest since December 2007,” said Joel Prakken.

Job Cuts in November Up 28% From October, Highest in Eight Months, But Lower Than a Year Ago

John Challenger of Challenger, Gray & Christmas

Despite the increase, job cuts this year are still well below last year’s levels. Last month’s total was 3.3 percent lower than the 50,349 job cuts announced in November 2009. Overall, employers announced 497,969 job cuts from January through November, a 60 percent decline from the 1,242,936 layoffs in the same period a year ago.

Leading the November job-cut surge was the government and non-profit sector, which announced 10,761 layoffs during the month. This marks the seventh time this year that the sector was the largest job cutter. Government and non-profit agencies have cut 138,979 jobs this year, 177 percent more than the second-ranked pharmaceutical industry, which has announced 50,168 job cuts to date.

“Government and non-profit job cuts are down 16 percent from a year ago, but that is probably little consolation to employees in the sector, which is still struggling despite signs of recovery in other areas of the economy. Unfortunately, 2011 may not offer much respite for workers in the sector as many newly elected members of Congress are pushing for significant federal spending cuts. Job cuts that have been concentrated at the state and local level could expand to include federal workers in the new year,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “Other sectors have seen significant declines in job cuts this year and, at the moment, there is little evidence of a possible resurgence in 2011. The November increase in job cuts is not indicative of a broader trend. Historically, job cuts tend to increase in the final months of the year. This is the period when many companies make budget and payroll decisions for the coming year,” said Challenger.

The November surge in job cuts was somewhat offset by hiring announcements totaling 26,012. Hiring was led by retailers, who reported plans to add 15,900 seasonal workers last month. In October, retailers announced plans to hire 66,000 seasonal workers. Transportation companies added 50,300 seasonal workers in October to help meet increased shipping demands over the holidays, but added only 500 additional workers in November.