Minnesota Headhunter

Top 10 Best And Worst Cities For U.S. Jobs | Minneapolis #4 Best City

I think this is the first survey of 2011 and it comes from Forbes America's Best And Worst Job Markets using statistics and analysis of the biggest 50 cities from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Juju.com's monthly Job Search Difficulty Index for Major Cities and Moody's Economy.com

It should not be surprising that Florida and California did not do so well.

Also not surprising is Minneapolis and St Paul rank as the 4^th best city:

Unemployment rate: 6.5%

Job-seekers per opening: 2.68

In the Twin Cities area "employment is expected to recover fully by mid-2011, far earlier than nationally," according to a recent Moody's Economy.com analysis of the region. Look for growth in manufacturing and professional services jobs like accounting. Did we mention that the metro is home to the Mall of America, a retail and tourist destination, which is expanding?

Best U.S. cities for jobs:

Federal Reserve Beige Book | December 2010

This months Beige Book shows a continuation of very slow but positive growth in the economy and in employment and labor markets.

In no way can we consider this to be great news but another report that shows we are going in the right direction.

Federal Reserve Beige Book National Summary:

• Economy:

Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts indicate that the economy continued to improve, on balance, during the reporting period from early/mid-October to mid-November.

Economic activity in the Boston, Cleveland, Atlanta, Dallas, and San Francisco Districts increased at a slight to modest pace, while a somewhat stronger pace of economic activity was seen in New York, Richmond, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Kansas City.

Philadelphia and St. Louis reported business conditions as mixed.

Minnesota Jobs And Employment Report: November 2010

The up and down yo-yo that is the Minnesota job market continued in November of 2010 according to the numbers released by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).

-5,100 jobs with the unemployment rate remaining at 7.1%

October numbers of +14,100 were revised to +16,000

So far in 2010 we are +48,000 Minnesota jobs.

Some things to look at with the numbers for this month:

- A spike in government jobs may coincide with the hiring of election judges

- Little or no increase in temporary hiring

- 7,000 temp jobs have been created in 2010

- Labor force participation dropped (again) to 71.6 percent the lowest rate since mid 1988

- The under/unemployed number is 13.8%

Minneapolis - St Paul Ranks #13 in the U.S. With 98,600 Tech Jobs

TechAmerica Foundation has come out with their Cybercities 2010: The Definitive Analysis of the High-Tech Industry in the Nation’s Top 60 Cities.

Minneapolis - St Paul with 98,600 tech jobs rank #13, here is the Top 10:

• New York
• Washington, DC
• San Jose/Silicon Valley
• Boston
• Dallas – Fort Worth
• Los Angeles
• Chicago
• Seattle
• Philadelphia
• Houston

It is important to note that these are 2009 numbers.

53 of the 60 cities lost jobs in 2009 with Minneapolis - St Paul down 3,800 jobs from 2008.

Some more statistics:

Average salary is $81,600, or 65 percent higher than the average private sector wage

Minnesota Recruiters Hiring And Jobs Survey | Fall 2010

 

We just completed our 3^rd Minnesota Recruiters hiring survey and little did I know when I started doing these surveys how much more of an education I would get regarding employment, hiring and job creation leading into and coming out of a recession.

I have followed these kinds of statistics for my 13 years and being able to see this in “real time” is fascinating.

Let me get the disclaimers and details out of the way out of the way:

- This is not a scientific survey but it does give a good read on what is going on

- This is a blind survey and no one (me included) gets to know who participated and what their answers are

- 2,100 were sent the survey link and about 10% replied

- The survey was open from Oct 5^th to the 15^th

Between events, conferences, conversation and client feedback the survey results match what I have been seeing which is this:

The Great Recession put us into ICU. We have been upgraded to Critical, Serious and now Fair condition. I doubt we see Good condition until Q2 2011 and we may still be in the hospital much of 2011.

That while there are pockets of strength in hiring and the number of jobs open (and opening) will continue to grow it will do so at an anemic pace.

Minnesota Business Community Lacks Confidence

The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce has released their 7^th annual Minnesota Business Barometer Survey and to be honest, I am a bit shocked at the low level of confidence.

I would have that it would be a bit better, not great, but better than the numbers show:

• 30% said the state’s economy was improving
  
• Nearly the same number said
  
• 20 % said they were more profitable than last year
  
• 30 % said they were less profitable
  
• Just over 40% said Minnesota was emerging more slowly than other states from the recession

There is some good long term news:

• 79% said they were optimistic about Minnesota's economic future over the next 10 years
  
• 18% said they were pessimistic

The Great Recession: December 2007 To June Of 2009

Woo Hoo, The Great Recession is dead. Well, at least according to the experts who make the call.

A committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research has decided that it started in December of 2007 and ended June of 2009.

Click Business Cycle Dating Committee, National Bureau of Economic Research to see the full report and here is the introduction:

CAMBRIDGE September 20, 2010 - The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research met yesterday by conference call. At its meeting, the committee determined that a trough in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in June 2009. The trough marks the end of the recession that began in December 2007 and the beginning of an expansion. The recession lasted 18 months, which makes it the longest of any recession since World War II. Previously the longest postwar recessions were those of 1973-75 and 1981-82, both of which lasted 16 months.

Anecdotal Analysis Of The Minnesota Job Market Q3 And Q4 2010

Over the past six weeks between Recruiter and HR events, meetings with senior management in companies of all sizes and industries, what I hear from job seekers and what I see from job postings here is an anecdotal analysis of the Minnesota job market as we end the 3^rd quarter of 2010, ready???

I don’t have a (definitive) clue.

My Magic 8 Ball has a cracked lense and some moisture has gotten in there making it difficult to see the answer to my (all of our) question.

Yep, that’s what I have come up with.

Hold on here is some information you can use to come up with your opinion and do me a favor, tell me what you are seeing.

Please note that this is not scientific and specific to skill set, industry, education attained or salary range unless otherwise stated. But it does come from enough varied sources that I feel comfortable giving an opinion.

What I know I know:

2010 U.S. And Minnesota IT Jobs See Increase In Q3 To Continue In Q4

While the Minnesota and U.S. IT employment did not get hit as hard as the 2001-2003 recession no doubt many jobs were lost.

Here in Minnesota we saw a noticeable tone change to the positive this spring, specifically March 2010. By noticeable I mean it went from “sucks” to “eh, the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a freight train coming at us after all.”

Yeah, it was that bad but we have seen a significant number of jobs posted and filled in Q2 and Q3 and expect this to continue into Q4.

I am talking about the IT job market in general, the aggregate. Certainly throughout the “Great Recession” we have seen pockets of strength:

• .Net
• Java
• C++
• PHP
• Mobile
• SharePoint

Many with those skill set had no idea that there were bad times going on.

Minnesota Jobs And Employment Report: July 2010

It’s been a while since I blogged about jobs reports and with some mixed signals we are getting in the local and national economy it is time to start following them again.

Today the State of Minnesota (all states), Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), released job numbers for July 2010.

9,800 jobs were created for the month. June numbers were revised up from -3,700 to -800.

The unemployment rate is at 6.8% unchanged from June.

The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.5%

40,900 jobs have been created since the beginning of 2010 and we are +29,100 over the past 12 months.

Job Gains - July (Year to Date):

5,500 (+14,200) Education and Health Care

4,300 (+11,100) Professional and Business Services

Minneapolis Ranks #1 In Medical Device & Minnesota #6 In Quality Of Life

Business Facilities magazine (July/August 2010) ranks cities and states on a number of different categories.

We missed on a few I thought we should be on and a few we need to get better with so we can be ranked.

From the 2010 Business Facilities Rankings Report:
Metro Rankings

Top 10 Metro – Medical Devices and Equipment

#1 Minneapolis, Minnesota

#2 New Haven, Connecticut

#3 Salt Lake City, Utah

#4 San Jose, California

#5 Madison, Wisconsin

Texas #1 In CNBC Top States For Doing Business 2010, Minnesota Ties for #8

CNBC has announced its America’s Top States For Doing Business 2010 with Texas finishing in first place.

Rounding out the Top 5:

• #2 Virginia
• #3 Colorado
• #4 North Carolina
• #5 Massachusetts

#8 is Minnesota tied with Utah.

Our neighbors:

• Iowa (#6)
• South Dakota (#7)
• North Dakota (#12)
• Wisconsin (#29)

Minnesota Recruiters Hiring And Jobs Survey | Spring 2010

Leading up to Minnesota Recruiters Conference 10 held April 30^th, 2010 at Best Buy Headquarters I sent out a Survey Monkey link to gauge what hiring looked like during Q1 of 2010 along with expectations of Q2 and 2010 in general, what jobs and skill sets were most an least in demand and how Recruiters and HR professionals felt about their own job security.

This is not a scientific survey. The survey link was sent multiple times to the Minnesota Recruiters email list of 1900 Recruiter and HR professionals with a 10% response rate.

While not scientific the results do show what most in the Recruiter and HR community have been seeing and talking about over the past weeks and points of conversation during the conference.

Do Unemployment Benefits Create Lazy Job Seekers?

A couple of weeks ago the San Francisco Federal Reserve released an Economic Letter (research paper) titled Extended Unemployment and UI Benefits and the Internet blew up. Not literally but close.

Let me get my personal view out of the way.

I believe that 95%+ of unemployed people want to work and are working hard to find a job. I do believe there are those who have no problem getting a check to stay at home. I base my number on the folks I see, hear from and do job search, LinkedIn and Social Media sessions with/for.

I see that most folks really do want to get back to work.

More than that (and this is me taking a shot at my conservative friends) we are not talking about a lot of money. Minimum wage or so. Do you really think that most people want to stay home for that?

Moving on…

US Job Growth An Ongoing Concern

I still need to post a bunch of employment statistics from recent weeks and with this post am jumping ahead a bit.

This afternoon I had a long chat with a reporter who was curious about why my optimism about job growth was so low.

Sure it is likely we are out of the recession, corporate profits are up and some temporary hiring (a forward looking indicator) has started but we have a long, long way to go.

Here is a recent chart of job losses and duration by recession:

Executive Search Firm Boyden Outlook Finds Need for CEO and C-Level Executive Mobility and Flexibility

– Top Global Executive Search Firm Reports Technology, Energy, Consumer and Life Sciences among Sectors with Some Pent Up Demand for Executive Talent –

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As globalization shifts corporate priorities, mobility and flexibility will be required for even star executives, as prospects for senior management often shift from the West to the developing world, according to the quarterly Boyden Executive Outlook released today.

“CEOs can come from any market due to the globalization of business,” said Chris Clarke, President and CEO of Boyden World Corporation. “Many of the best opportunities are shifting away from the West, while changes in government policy and taxation are making corporations consider locating operations in countries with less restrictive policies.”

What Is The Definition Of Unemployed?

In good times and bad times and regardless of political party I have said that the way the United States government, specifically the Bureau of Labor Statistics, states unemployment statistics is B*** S***. CRAP I say!!!

In the coming days I am going to be doing a bunch of posts about recent labor statistics including what many consider “real unemployment” numbers by age, race, location, etc.

How is it that the media folks do not pick up in this? My guess is they do not get it and do not see the need to educate themselves.

For now I leave you with what I think is the best way to understand the different definitions of unemployed in the United States (hat tip to Toby Dayton of Diggings for the video):

Is Your Major Metropolitan Area A Smart City? Mine Is. Minneapolis/St. Paul #4

I do not put a lot of emphasis on surveys because how one measures, asks questions and differing criteria can give varied results.

But I am competitive.

And I am a homer.

So when The Daily Beast announced the results of their survey and Minneapolis - St Paul is #4 I am going to blog about it.

They ranked cities with 1,000,000+ in population (including suburbs) from 1 to 55 and came up with the following order (click America's Smartest Cities—From First to Worst to get their criteria, slide show and brief commentary on each city):

Who’s Hiring? Week of 9/25/09

The following post is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap:

From: Phil Rosenberg, President of reCareered

Who's Hiring is a weekly survey of companies showing the highest hiring activity. Not only is this valuable for job seekers, but for business analysts, corporate strategists, marketers, salespeople, investment analysts, financial advisers, and others who are interested in companies experiencing growth. Despite the recession, these companies are all expanding.

Total Job Openings:
The Telecommunications, Banking, Business Services, Health Care, and Retail verticals are the top industries currently hiring based on a survey of active job advertisements from the nations’ top job boards.

Based on surveys of US job advertisements in the top job boards and aggregators, the following companies added the most job openings:

Challenger, Gray and Christmas Announced Layoff Survey May 2009

It is important to note that the Challenger, Gray and Christmas survey is of announced layoffs and not all layoffs. I point to this survey frequently because it shows trends and as we all try and figure out what is going with the labor market one more bit of data to take a look at.

The trend we see here as with other data that is coming out is we are at or likely have seen the worst of the jobs reports although here we see comments (and I agree) that we are not coming out of this as fast as some think or would like to hope.

Is this “good news”? I prefer not as bad news.

So to the trends...

• 111,182 announced layoffs in May is lowest level since 95,094 in September 2008
• 132,590 job cuts in April 2009
• 150,411 job cuts in March 2009
• 241,749 job cuts in January 2009
• 103,522 job cuts in May 2008