The Mighty Job Market Powers On

Add the American job market of 2021-2022, which has not only put on a show of force never previously seen; it’s sustained that performance for the 20th consecutive month, as of the August jobs report released September 2 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

It’s the stuff on which American legend (historic is built: vision, perseverance, devotion, energy, power. Lewis & Clark beginning the exploration of one-third of what would become the United States, Longfellow’s The Village Blacksmith, the transcontinental railroad, Thomas Edison’s laboratories, Paul Bunyan, Jim Thorpe, the Civilian Conservation Corps.

By now, you’ve seen all the news stations’ 30-second spots about high job creation (315K) and low unemployment rate (3.7%). Nice, but not nearly the whole story. There were times in the 54 years I’ve been in the job market and in the 25 years I’ve been observing and commenting on it (not to mention coaching people through it), that those two numbers were good but the job market was not. The market is a complex organism and must be understood as such.

To that end, let’s look at two other BLS reports: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) and Employment Situation. This will help dispel the fallacious argument, already underway on the part of negative commentators who have already pushed aside the mountains of positive data to point to one stat: the unemployment rate ticked up by 0.2% to 3.7%. Of course, that’s without understanding that the number of people in the civilian labor force surged by 786,000 (three-quarters of a million newly energized, optimistic job seekers), a number exceeding the 344,000 newly unemployed people by a significant margin 442,000.  Parallel but rarely cited stat is that those not in the labor force declined by 613,000. In an aging population, that number tends to rise – unless, of course, there’s a force opposing that. And there is. Actually, there are several.

The most tantalizing characteristic of our job market is open jobs. An open job is one that an employer would fill immediately if the right candidate would just show up. Given the total unemployed population at 6.01 million, the number of open jobs – 11.2 million – is breathtaking. In other words, there are just about two open jobs for every job seeker. Compare that to 2010 when, coming out of the Great Recession, there were 6.5 seekers for every job. That was then.

Of late, that open jobs number has been hovering near or above 11 million for an astonishing 13 consecutive months. Further, the hires, voluntary quits, and turnover rates are all within a hair of their historic highs; and the layoffs rate is equally near its historic low.

What this means is that the market is not just active, it is – in a word – hyperactive. It’s the best time in history to be a job seeker (or changer) – without any doubt. In my humble opinion, the job market – all by itself – is what’s keeping the overall economy from falling into a recession. Officially, with two consecutive quarters of GDP shrinkage, we’re in one. Practically, though, many economists won’t concede that formality – and the job market is why.

Now, if that’s not enough for you, consider the potential fatal blows the job market has endured during its 20-month marathon, factors that could have blown all this to smithereens: Covid, supply chain disruptions, continual climate crisis events, the hearings of the January 6 Committee, more stock market agitations than are good for our digestive health, inflation and repeated interest rate hikes (with three more to come this year), the war in Ukraine, monkeypox, and intensifying mid-term shenanigans that surely will lead to full turbulence. (Mid-terms always make things crazy to one degree or another; this year should be one for the books.)

With it all and through it all, what did the job market do? Buckle? Collapse? Shrink? Implode? None of the above. Not even remotely close, as it turns out. The two biggest job creation years on record were 2021 and – by the time we get to December – 2022.

That’s a bet.

Eli Amdur has been providing individualized career and executive coaching, as well as corporate leadership advice since 1997. For 15 years he taught graduate leadership courses at FDU. He has been a regular writer for this and other publications since 2003. You can reach him at [email protected] or 201-357-5844.