The Great Recession roars on during this holiday season. Our company is focused on sales hiring, both assessing candidates for our customers and running full recruiting processes. The hiring outlook is of great importance to us and a topic I try to track closely.
That being said, this abcnews.com article provides a mixed bag (emphasis mine):
The November outlook by the National Association for Business Economics, which is set to be released Monday, shows economists expect net employment losses to bottom out in the first quarter of next year. Employers are seen starting to add to their payrolls after that.
I would be more comforted by these economists if I didn’t read so many unemployment stories that are saturated with phrases like “economists were surprised by the numbers….” However, any possibility of recovery is a welcome thought. It does appear that the hiring environment will be reserved:
But even if companies do start restaffing next spring, they aren’t expected to ramp up hiring very quickly. Some 7.3 million jobs have been lost since December 2007, according to NABE. Of the 48 panelists surveyed, 61 percent do not expect a complete recovery of those lost jobs until 2012. And they expect the unemployment rate will remain “stubbornly high,” averaging 9.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010.
“Stubbornly high” should be in quotes. I would have used the adverb “dangerously,” but that is me. One point to make here is that strong salespeople are a valuable asset to any company and even moreso during depressed revenue times.