By now I’m sure that most of you have heard about the sharp deceleration in March hiring after a long string of strong jobs reports. Non-farm payrolls slowed in March to a seasonally adjusted 126,000, the weakest hiring in 15 months. Hiring estimates for both January and February were also revised downward.
My gut feeling is that things are not as bad as that report indicates, despite the press running around crying that “the sky is falling.” After all, bad news sells. The US has had a number of soft first quarters in recent years. I haven’t been able to come up with an explanation for that phenomenon that I’m satisfied with yet. Lots of correlation but unconvincing causation. Here at Toyjobs, we don’t just make stuff up but it’s still important that we recognize the pattern.
There have been lots of layoffs recently in the oil and oil service businesses and certainly that is a factor. And, for the last two years, first quarter winter weather has been horrible. Last month, job growth in construction and leisure and hospitality, two of the most weather-sensitive industries, slowed by about
90,000 jobs. Days when the office is closed due to weather also takes a greater toll than it is generally given credit for. There are the snow days themselves and then there are the next few days of playing catch up. Yes, I know everyone claims that they can get all the work done or are even more productive from home but we all know that’s not entirely true, don’t we? This means multiple days taken away from interviewing and decision making all of which pushes actual hiring down the road.
In the toy industry it is not unusual for hiring to be slow in January and February as everybody hits the road for the global trade show circuit. There is no time to interview and make decisions. A lot of companies also decide on whether to create jobs based on trade show and early year sales results. Hiring can slow even as search starts increase.
That’s what we’re seeing this year. Here at Toyjobs, after an extremely strong fourth quarter, first quarter placements have been slow as search starts have been soaring. If both unemployment figures and search starts had gone into reversal, I would be concerned that the US economy was faltering. That has not been the case. Search starts have been quite robust and those searches are now beginning to come to completion. Many will be completed in April and May – a few weeks later than usual. This leaves me optimistic that poor first quarter jobs numbers represent a delay rather than a long term slowdown and that we are thankfully about to experience a rebound.
Optimistically,
Tom Keoughan
