Better Days

Last year, I spent four months completely unemployed, five more working little pick-up jobs at about 40 hours a month, and another working two little contract gigs that added up to probably 40 hours a week, before I finally landed a full-time consulting job. The job market during most of that time was pretty lame - but to paraphrase Reagan, a depression is when you're out of work, a complete recovery is when you get a job.

Since I'm back out on the job-hunting market, it's definitely an issue of interest.

The standard bleat from the left when the nascent Bush Boom is mentioned is "But...but the jobs being added are all crappy service jobs".

Not so, says Tim Kane of the Heritage Foundation.

Money quote:

The economy added 112,000 payroll jobs in June, marking the tenth straight month of payroll employment growth. Over the past year, the economy has added nearly 1.5 million payroll jobs.

All service-providing sectors expanded, save government. Leading the payroll gains were two high-paying sectors: professional and business ( 39,000), and education and health ( 37,000). Critics will say that professional services includes temps, but temporary workers gains were less than one third of the net growth in that sector, and it is an error to assume that temporary jobs are sub-par.

The larger trend in the American labor force is summed up in a word: flexibility. That is partly reflected in temporary positions in which both the employer and employee can assess one another during a trial period—a matching model that is often utilized by highly valued software programmers. The trend also appears in the relentless surge in workers who prefer part-time employment, currently 19.5 million. In fact, there are 150,000 more part-timers by choice than one year ago, and 100,000 fewer part-timers who prefer full-time jobs.

The unemployment rate remains below that of most of the Clinton Administration, and would be lower - but the numbers are drawing a lot of the "Discouraged Workers" from the Clinton recession back out into the market.

Not that the media will report it this way, of course - but people will figure it out.

By the way - unlike last year's miasma of misery, where it took me three weeks to find my first lead. I already have shots at three or four jobs that are right up my alley, and have had two initial "screening" interviews - last year, I didn't get my first screener for an actual job for nearly a month. If all else fails, there's a significant chance that my old job will hire me back anyway, in anywhere from two weeks to two months. It wasn't an elimination, just a reorganization, during which the company suspended all contract work - which was what I was doing.

Not pleasant, but better than last year any way you slice it.

Knock wood.

Posted by Mitch at July 5, 2004 05:58 AM | TrackBack