U.S. companies may experience “a hiring panic” in the next few months.

[DCBob]

from Bloomberg...

U.S. companies may experience “a hiring panic” in the next few months as they struggle to fill job openings, according to Edward Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research Inc.

-snip-

“More companies are having trouble finding the employees they need,” Yardeni wrote, citing feedback from clients of his New York-based investment-advisory firm that talk to companies regularly. The Conference Board’s gauge may fall into the 20s once hiring accelerates, the posting said.

The index is signaling that the unemployment rate may drop below 8 percent soon, according to Yardeni. Last month’s rate was 8.3 percent, unchanged from January, according to the average estimate of economists in a Bloomberg survey.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-02/-hiring-panic-may-lift-u-s-confidence-soon-chart-of-the-day.html

================

I know many long term unemployed may find this story hard to believe however historically this is something that can happen when coming out of recession.

[Fawke Em]

1. True. Businesses have been tightening their belt for so long

that when it snaps loose, they're up the creek without a paddle.

(OK... I apologize for all the cliches, but they work here).

[Dawson Leery]

2. kick

[csziggy]

3. Are they still setting up impossible criteria for applicants?

Especially in the IT area, for years companies have been asking for far more than is possible to provide and then offering a pittance for pay. It's been a wonderful excuse for hiring foreign workers to do jobs "Americans don't want to do."

I smell a movement to begin asking to loosen requirements for more visas for more foreign workers.

[DCBob]

5. There are way too many h1-b visas issued..

especially considering the situation we are in now. That program needs to be reworked and reduced at least until the job situation improves here for US IT workers.

[csziggy]

8. Yes and it has been a decade and more the the impossible criteria have been used

To justify them. I don't work in IT but I've known enough IT people to know the drill.

Ten years of experience in a programming language that has only been out five years is a classic type of criteria. Completely nonsensical requirements that have nothing to do with the job or are just completely ridiculous.

And then they offer $10 an hour for a independent contractor job with no benefits. Gee, wonder why American workers won't take the jobs or are considered "not qualified"?

[DCBob]

10. I work in IT.

The h1-b program has affected me in my advancement in my career and in hiring people. The main result of the program is too get cheaper labor...not better quality employees.

[Vincardog]

12. I used to work in IT. 20 years I chased main frame skills. Then came the small systems.

The companies who paid me fairly well to design and build systems suddenly didn't believe that I could do the job on a small box.
Not that they ever gave me a chance. They wanted me to know their system, their industry, and the next big thing (What ever it was)
and wanted me to take a 50% pay cut.
Fuck that. They can keep sending it of to the chinese prison labor factories and getting the unworkable crap code back from them.

[DCBob]

20. Its troubling how companies pigenhole software/network engineers based on past experience.

Much of your experience in mainframes is easily transferable to any computer system. Their main goal is to cut costs so they hire younger cheaper folks or outsource it to Asia. In the shortrun it might look good on their bottom line but in the long run they will lose.

[Vincardog]

23. The MOST important skills have nothing to do with syntax. They are the ability to

discover the real needs and anticipate ways and methods to be beneficial to the corporation.
Remember that the ones making the decisions are rarely technical in background and they don't necessarily understand what is possible. On the other hand I am happier and healthier not working in an overcrowded closet trying to "FIX" spaghetti code working for a "manager" who is only concerned with kissing his bo$$e$ a$$ and his next bonu$.

[csziggy]

17. Definitely - everyone I know and have talked to on the internet in IT

And in any kind of technical and many engineering fields have been affected. It's not just in the last ten years but over about the last twenty years.

The other problem is firing older workers to hire young people for less money. I know more than one person who was given notice and then forced to train their replacements in their last two weeks on the job. One got out of it - he was owed two months of vacation time and took it from the day he was given notice.

That's why I suspect any report that American businesses will not be able to find enough workers. It's total BS. There are people in this country perfectly willing to work. But they cannot afford and should not be expected to work for only a little above minimum wage. Businesses need to get off their wallets and pay for the experience and expertise of American workers with an adequate salary and good benefits.

[Snake Alchemist]

21. they're just doing the jobs Americans won't do

Trying to find a better life, etc.

[nashville_brook]

4. businesses are hiring "revenue producers" not support staff.

it's that way all across my profession, commercial real estate brokerage. we're adding 8 new brokers to a team of 12. no new admins. no new marketing. we're just supposed to pick up the "SLACK." I already work 60-hour weeks (on salary, yay!).

the resume is out there...can't wait for this flood of new hiring to happen.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

25. not just your arena, either...

another example of this is my company which is hiring sales like mad but not increasing the tech-weenies like me needed to install and support the product. all of us are becoming stretched so thin that something will give soon...

sP

[midnight]

6. Hats off to the workers who have had to pick up the slack for those corporations refusing to hire...

[DCBob]

11. Yes indeed, many have been working 50-60+ hours to cover for those laid off.

Companies need to start hiring.

[socialist_n_TN]

7. I wonder if Occupy is starting to scare them a little........

Economic crises always lead to a radicalization for the long term unemployed. The biggest rise in the socialist/communist movement was in the depths of the Great Depression. The problem with radicalization is that it never goes back. Even if you become an "inactive" radical, your politics are still radical.

For the long term unemployed, this is probably too late to stem the tide of radicalization.

[anti-alec]

9. Hiring panic?

If there was a hiring panic, they should be offering us jobs on the spot for $75k/year with full benefits paid by the company, and zero from my paycheck, plus a profit sharing plan that hands out bonuses each year.

Then I'll believe it.

Right now, I'm getting contacts for contract jobs, even short-term, but I wanted to see if there was a permanent hire opportunity after each contract, and they're saying "maybe". When they say "yes", then I will take on a contract.

IBM is one such company that's hiring contractors again (per a few tech recruiters)

[KamaAina]

13. Uh-huh. They're panicked they might have to start paying decent wages.

[JHB]

14. "Panic" over what? Having to (gasp!) pay people more?

My, God, won't someone think of the maximized profit margin! How can we redistribute wealth upward as fast as possible if we have to shell out more for (eeeewwwww!) employees!

[Brickbat]

15. They've been promising a hiring boom for the past 10 years because of all the baby boomers retiring.

Mostly I've seen companies do more with fewer employees.

[csziggy]

18. Baby boomers cannot afford to retire - they've lost their retirement money

With the stock market drops and pension raids - if they had any retirement prospects other than Social Security. They have to keep working to have insurance. Most have to keep working to have enough money to survive.

That's why increasing the eligibility ages for Medicare and Social Security is insanity.

[magical thyme]

16. I can only hope and pray

I can tell you that our lab manager went into a panic last winter when they tried to force me to work 12 hour overnight shifts -- something which I had specifically told her would be extremely difficult for me to do in my job interview, and that I would be available only for "extreme emergencies.

I am *per diem* -- I work only as they need *and as I am available*. I get no paid time off, no insurance, no pension, no benefits at all. She *thought* I would jump when they opened a full time night-shift job. She panicked when I chose to stay *per diem.* Overnight shift is for young people with lots of energy. Certainly in my 20s I pulled all-nighters and could do it. I am pushing 60. I will NOT destroy my health for those bastards.

She went ballistic ( I was physically afraid) and legalistic, making me personally afraid (her husband is a "high-powered lawyer"and everybody fears her) with covert threats. They succeeded in forcing me to 'do my best.' The first night I fell asleep at the wheel on my way home. Shortly after I woke up, I nearly had 2 head-ons. I had swollen glands for weeks after. My elderly horse got sick and I didn't see the symptoms until it was too late. I had to put him down in early February.

I am *barely* back on my feet and those mother-fucking bastards scheduled me for a night shift next week. I quietly refused. I agreed to work the first 6-7 hours of the shift, period. Today I checked up with the supervisor; she has not yet done anything about it. She is going to ask the former night shift person to come in early. She is afraid to ask one of the regular night shift people because she is afraid that will bring the lab manager into it.

I very, very quietly said, "I won't be threatened again. She is not the *only* person with a lawyer in the family."

The bottom line is that running a skeleton staff and filling in the blanks with part-timers and per diems is not my emergency -- it is their strategy. They want night shift adequately covered -- hire for it and pay for it with full-timers, don't shove it down the throat of someone trying to wind down for retirement. Bastards.

[Aerows]

22. They are going to have to start paying people more

They act like there are no qualified people in technical fields, but the truth is, they want someone that knows UNIX, SQL, and any number of programming languages for minimum wage and that's not going to fly.

[jillan]

24. You know what pisses me off about this? Businesses have learned to push the employees to the brink

doing more with less, and getting away with it.

Less employees = higher bottom line.

I worked for many many years at one of those 'too big to fail' banks and lived it.
They kept downsizing the staff while raising the amount of results we were to produce.

It's this mindset that is going to have to change before unemployment numbers really drop.