December hiring slowdown? Don't believe it

By: Eli Amdur
Vantage Point
NorthJersey.com
12/10/2023

..... Don't believe the nonsense that hiring slows down in December, or in a Thanksgiving week and New Year's week.
..... It's just not true, although to the untrained eye, it sure looks like it. The problem with that fallacy is that it shapes behavior negatively by creating a pessimistic outlook and, further, a resignation that one may as well just put one's job search n hold and pick it back up after the bowl games.
..... Well, as an independent career and executive coach for the last 26 years and a candidate for plenty of jobs for 29 years before that, I have plenty of evidence - both fact-based and anecdotal - to dispute that. Hiring does not slow down during the holidays - or as a result of the holidays. Period. Here's the story of hing at year's end.
..... While everyone's attention is fixed on job creation and unemployment umbers, numbers that make the headlines each month, they are no indicators of hiring. On the other hand, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issues its monthly report called Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), and that's the indicator we need. Here's what the numbers say.
..... This report lags the employment Situation summary (unemployment, job growth) by a month, but is valid and current month by month because it uses six measurements: job openings, job opening rate, hires rate, separation rate, voluntary quits rate and layoffs rate.
..... Let's look at one: the hires rate, or the percentage of the overall civilian labor force that was hired in the most recent month reported. In September, [2023] the fourth straight month at 3.7 or 3.8%, there is no relationship between hires and tome of year. The numbers, examined over 23 years (200-present), are clearly linked to the activity level of the overall job market and economy.
..... In 2021 and 2022, when the job market was on fire, the hires rate was between 4.0 and 4.6% while job creation was exploding at an average of 526,000 per month.
..... since then, job creation and hiring have cooled off, but very gradually and certainly unreacted to seasonal influences. Hiring in January was 4.1% and is now 3.7%. in the full year of 2022, the range was 4.0% to 4.5%. In 2021, 4.1% to 4.6%.
..... That's not a holiday-induced reaction. It's a direct correlation with total activity level in the job market.
..... Anecdotally, and with numbers aside, for two of the best jobs I ever had, I became a candidate in Thanksgiving week and nailed the position the second week of December. Just sayin'.
..... So, what does this mean to you, the candidate? September;s civilian labor force numbers 167.9 million. With a hire rate of 3.7%, that means that 6.2 million people came home one night in September and said, "Honey, I got a job." Since you, as a candidate, are concerned with only one job - the one you're applied for - that huge macro number should be of no interest to you.
..... And that low unemployment rate, under 4.0% for 23 straight months, should be equally unimportant to you. the unemployment numbers that should matter to you is either 0% or 100%: you;re either employed or not. And that's not nothing to do with holidays.
..... Why is this discussion important? Because, simply, your job search is influenced by your attitude, as is any other imitative, and your attitude, as is any other altitude, despite that hackneyed cliche. In my coaching practice of more than a quarter century, the correlations I see are between attitude and success, not between getting hired at certain times of year.
..... What does that do for my argument? I advise stepping up your intensity because: (a) some employers are continuing th hire, (b) some are rushing to sue year-end budgets, and (c) others are doing all the vignetting and interviewing now so that on January 2, the offer letters go out. Further, when employers see candidates who are going all out in their attempts to land that jobs, they look quite favorably upon them, as opposed to those who seem to be missing in action.
..... General Dwight Eisenhower, who knew a thing or two about attitude and about prevailing over the odds. said, "Pessimism never won any battle"
..... Same story today.

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