Jobs may be coming back, but they aren’t the same ones workers were used to.
Many of the jobs employers are adding are temporary or contract positions, rather than traditional full-time jobs with benefits. With unemployment remaining near 10%, employers have their pick of workers willing to accept less secure positions.
In 2005, the government estimated that 31% of U.S. workers were already so-called contingent workers. Experts say that number could increase to 40% or more in the next 10 years.
James Stoeckmann, senior practice leader at WorldatWork, a professional association of human resource executives, believes that full-time employees could become the minority of the nation’s workforce within 20 to 30 years, leaving employees without traditional benefits such as health coverage, paid vacations and retirement plans, that most workers take for granted today.
"The traditional job is not doomed. But it will increasingly have competition from other models, the most prominent is the independent contractor model," he said.
Doug Arms, senior vice president of Ajilon, a staffing firm, says about 90% of the positions his company is helping clients fill right now are on a contract basis.
"[Employers] are reluctant to bring on permanent employees too quickly," he said. "And the available candidate landscape is much different now. They’re a little more aggressive to take any position."
Cathy, who asked that her last name not be used, lost her job as a recruiter for a financial services firm in February 2009. She started working on a contract basis four months later. She believes that many employers are taking improper advantage of the weak labor market.
"I work in HR, I understand that sometimes you need to hire a contractor because you have a project and you won’t need the person when it’s done in three months," she said. "But that’s not what’s happening here."
Cathy said her co-workers who had permanent jobs didn’t treat her differently, but she still felt like a
Some additional detail behind the improvement we’ve seen on the margin in the labor market year to date. The AP reports:
Job openings rose sharply earlier this year, a sign that employers might be preparing to step up hiring.
The number of openings in January rose about 7.6 percent, to 2.7 million, compared with December, the Labor Department said. And the job openings rate climbed to 2.1 percent, the highest in nearly a year. That rate measures available jobs as a percentage of total employment.
There are now about 5.5 unemployed people, on average, competing for each opening. That’s still far more than the 1.7 people who were competing for each opening when the recession began. But it’s down from just over 6 people per opening in December 2009.
The gradually brightening jobs picture corresponds to what many job search Web sites are reporting.
As can be seen below, while the number of openings has jumped, the level of hires has not necessarily improved (possibly partially explained by the wariness of those with jobs to make the plunge).
While not anywhere near normalized, the unemployed to job opening ratio has turned sharply.
This will be another important metric to watch in coming months.
Companies in the U.S. cut an estimated 169,000 jobs in November, according to a private report based on payroll data.
The drop, the smallest since July 2008, compares with a revised 195,000 decline the prior month, data from ADP Employer Services showed today. The figures were forecast to show a decline of 150,000 jobs, according to the median estimate of 32 economists in a Bloomberg survey.
The report signals the job market is still deteriorating and unemployment will probably climb further even as the economy is emerging from the worst recession since the 1930s. After overestimating payroll losses by 103,000 on average in the five months to September, ADP’s initial estimate for October was in line with the government’s payroll figures.
“Our economy is still a long way from adding jobs,” Guy LeBas, chief fixed-income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia, said before the report. “Labor markets remain the one area where significant improvement in economic conditions has yet to manifest.”
ADP includes only private employment and doesn’t take into account hiring by government agencies.
Optimists will say this report shows "The Bleeding is Slowing‘, but the fact is that after shedding THIS many jobs and we are still losing 150k+ jobs per month is simply stunning.
• More than 15.2 million U.S. mortgages, or 32.2 percent of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity position as of June 30, 2009 according to newly released data from First American CoreLogic. As of June 2009, there were an additional 2.5 million mortgaged properties that were approaching negative equity. Negative equity and near negative equity mortgages combined account for nearly 38 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide.
• The aggregate property value for loans in a negative equity position was $3.4 trillion, which represents the total property value at risk of default. In California, the aggregate value of homes that are in negative equity was $969 billion, followed by Florida ($432 billion), New Jersey ($146 billion), Illinois ($146 billion) and Arizona ($140 billion). Los Angeles had over $310 billion in aggregate property value in a negative equity position, followed by New York ($183 billion), Miami ($152 billion), Washington, DC ($149 billion) and Chicago ($134 billion).
• The distribution of negative equity is heavily skewed to a small number of states as three states account for roughly half of all mortgage borrowers in a negative equity position. Nevada (66 percent) had the highest percentage with nearly two?thirds of mortgage borrowers in a negative equity position. In Arizona (51 percent) and Florida (49 percent), half of all mortgage borrowers were in a negative equity position. Michigan (48 percent) and California (42 percent) round out the top five states.
There are some interesting tables and graphs in the article that inquiring minds are investigating. Here are some partial alphabetical lists.
click on any chart in this post to see a sharper image
Negative Equity Share
Property Values and Loan-To-Equity Ratios
Nevada, not shown has a near-negative equity share of 68.9% and a Loan-To-Value ratio of a whopping 115%!
It is disingenuous to say there are only a half-dozen or so problem states, when the problem states are where people live. It is wrong to treat Alabama and Alaska the same as California or Florida.
Mortgage Facts and Figures – Select States
California has $2.4 trillion in mortgages debt. 42.0% of the properties have negative
Note from dshort: After posted an update yesterday for the Chicago Fed National Activity Index, I received requests to update my periodic look at the Philly Fed ADS Index.
The Philly Fed's Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Business Conditions Index (hereafter the ADS index) is a fascinating but relatively little known real-time indicator of business conditions for the U.S. economy, not just the Third Federal Reserve District, which covers eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware. Thus it is comparable to the better-known Chicago Fed's National Activity Index, which is updated monthly (more about the comparison below).
Named for the three economists who devised it, the index, as described on its home page...
Today’s AM fix was USD 1,378.75, EUR 1,070.21 and GBP 908.39 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,353.75, EUR 1,051.95 and GBP 890.86 per ounce.
Gold climbed $19.40 or 1.43% yesterday to $1,384.30/oz and silver finished 2% higher.
Silver’s recovery yesterday from being 10% lower at one stage to recouping these losses and then rising over 2% was very positive technically. The key reversal is leading some to postulate that we may have seen the bottom or are close to a bottom.
UK prime minister, David Cameron, promised to hold a referendum on whether Great Britain should remain in the EU, but only on two conditions. The first condition, that Cameron be re-elected as prime minister is iffy enough.
The second condition, that Cameron renegotiate the Lisbon Treaty, I said would never happen. And it won't.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel sealed the fate on that score as Berlin plans to streamline EU but avoid wholesale treaty change. Berlin is drawing up plans for treaty changes to streamline decision-making in the eurozone, while stopping short of any wholesale renegotiation that would allow the UK to repatriate powers from Brussels.
Although Angela Merkel, German chancellor, has expr...
U.S. equity futures traded lower in early pre-market trade following a weaker than expected GDP report from the eurozone for the first quarter. GDP growth rose to -0.2 percent on a quarterly basis from -0.6 percent but missed forecasts of a 0.1 percent contraction. Weakness was notably seen in Germany, France, and Italy in the report, with the annualized rate of growth for Germany dropping to -1.4 percent vs. 0.2 percent growth forecast.
Top News
In other news around the markets:
The U.K. had fewer people claim unemployment benefits in April than expected, a positive sign for the labor market as the ...
So, what did the market want today? Nothing it appears. It traded on weak volume and had very little movement. This morning the market hated commodities especially silver, but by days end, the market liked silver, gold and even oil but not the dollar. Why?
Last week the economic reports were tough, with bad misses on more than one occasion. But the market tended to ignore the bad news, probably because money continues to pour into equities from money market funds, long term fixed income, and many struggling foreign economies. On Thursday, investors finally caved to even more bad news from Initial Jobless Claims and weak Housing Starts. Then on Friday, when Michigan Sentiment and Leading Indicators posted large positive surprises, the money came pouring back to generate qui...
VOYA - ING US, Inc. – Shares in ING Group’s U.S. retirement, investment and insurance business are up as much as 8.0% today to $26.98, the highest level since the company’s May 2nd IPO. ING US was rated new ‘buy’ at BTIG LLC with a 12-month target share price of $31.00 today. The stock has rallied nearly 40% over the IPO price of $19.50, and some options traders are positioning for the price of the underlying to extend gains during the second half of the year. November expiry options are the most ac...
Again, not much to add to this market in terms of analysis – nothing matters other than central banks. Last Wednesday/Thursday there were some 9 economic reports, 7 of which were disappointing or could be considered as such and all it got was one rare day down, and then new highs Friday. Markets are up 10 of the past 12 sessions and 17 of 21. Friday's move to 1666 was an exact 1000 point rally from March 2009's 666 bottom. Since this most recent leg of the move has been medium fast rather than a huge spike ala 1999, things are not necessarily overbought on the daily chart but we are seeing extremely rare action on the ...
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This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).
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By Craigzooka
I am going to share with you how I manage my IRA and the power of reducing your cost basis. My goal each year is a 20% return in my IRA. Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't, but I believe that all of my success is due to reducing my cost basis. To illustrate the power of reducing your cost basis here are some trades we did last year. These trades are taken from an educational portfolio we ran in a paper-trading account for a little more than a year.
We bought RIG on 5/15/2012 for $44.13, sold it on 1/18/2013 for $46 but booked a profit of $1,154.
We bought MT on 1/4/2012 for $19.24, sold it on 12/21/2012 for $15 but booked a profit of $454.
We bought CHK on 1/27/2012 for $21.93, sold it on 10/19/2012 for $18 b...
Stock market posts another record setting week, but the big news came after Friday’s close.
Courtesy of NASA
The stock market put on another record setting show with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) closing at a record high 15,118 and the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) closing at 1633.70, another all time closing high.
For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) gained 1%, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) climbed 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite (NYSEARCA:...
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Well, well, well....it is good to know that there are others in the scientific arena who believed that YMI Bioscience's data (cough - Gilead) is a better drug than Incyte's Jakafi. Now, the definitive data are still unknown, but there was enough evidence from a Phase 2 trial to take a small risk for a huge reward. So, let's forget about Apple (AAPL), and do nothing but biotechs from now until Congress passes universal health care coverage for prescriptions....and drive the prices down so that research and development is no longer feasible to conduct in the US. Even Seattle Genetics (SGEN) has been on a tear as of late...
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
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