As you probably know, the unemployment rate in the United States has skyrocketed to 8.5%, a 25-year high. Since November, the nation has lost more than 3 million jobs. Given this recession, it seems pretty difficult to see any brightness in any of this. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, although 4.8 million workers were laid off or chose to leave their jobs in February, employers across the country also hired 4.3 million workers that same month. There were also 3 million job openings nationwide and there are still millions today.

Robert J. Barbera, chief economist at ITG, a research and trading firm said, “Ninety out of 100 people who know the number — 650,000 were lost in February — think that means no one was hired and 650,000 were fired.”

So who exactly is hiring? Hospitals, colleges, discount stores, restaurants and municipal public works departments are just some of the more popular ones. I.B.M is hiring more than 700 people for its new technical services center in Iowa. Construction companies, retailers, and many other industries are still hiring.

The downside? The only thing is there’s much more competition for every job that you apply for but do not neglect to realize that there are still a lot of hiring going around. Restaurants that expected only teenagers from high school to work there are now receiving applications for middle aged adults. So competition does not only affect the middle age working class, but teenagers who are looking for work to help out their family and to keep some money in their pockets, are also facing similiar challenges as well.

The recession has also encouraged people to stay at their current jobs. Only 1.5% of workers voluntarily quit their jobs in February, the lowest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began its data 8 years ago.

Tags: bureau of labor staistics, competition, current news, ibm, recesion, robert barbera, unemployment

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 8:27 pm and is filed under News Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.