No question the economy is slowing down so this article from Forbes.com is not surprising:

The Conference Board found there was a total of 3,733,200 online-advertised job vacancies, a 0.6% decline from March 2007 and the first year-on-year fall in total numbers since the index began in 2005. The Board said the decline reflects a slowing in annual growth in 42 states, with 14 states showing negative growth.

Yes, I know, the index is only a few years old, but there is enough data to show the present-day trend.  Here is some anecdotal information from the survey:

The online-ad volume in California dropped 118,000, or 19%, below its March 2007 level. The volume of online-advertised vacancies in Florida (217,100) was 15% lower than the March 2007 level, while the volume in Texas (336,900) was up 8% and ads in New York (275,800) were up slightly (1.4%).

I would still caution against buying into the media hype about the “plummeting economy.”  The economy is dynamic so there are always going to be down cycles like the one we are in now.  However, some of the discussions are borderline ridiculous.  I read part of an article the other day stating that we are heading into another 1930’s era depression.  The hyperbole that surrounds economic reporting stills astounds me.

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Why do the so-called experts consistently error on the doom-and-gloom side of economic prediction?

The latest numbers via CNNMoney.com’s Jobs grow more than expected:

Employers added fewer workers to U.S. payrolls in November, according to a closely-watched government reading on labor market strength released Friday that still came in a bit stronger than Wall Street expectations.

Folks, you ever notice they always expect worse numbers?  Note how they open the article with a negative comment even though the number is 24,000 jobs higher than expectations.  The number will be revised later and the economy is cooling off after a torrid pace during the summer.  But it is still strong.

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I enjoy skewering the mainstream media for “talking down the economy” which is a practice they condemned back in 2000.  But all signs point to a slowdown in this red-hot economy which has led the Federal Reserve to target a soft landing.

I’m no economist, but I found this article by John Sumser quite interesting.  His take on the economy is one I have not heard (emphasis mine):

The veterans, burnt by the dot com bust and the post 911 recession will argue that business will contract and layoffs will ensue. That’s the prototypical recession profile. Everywhere you turn, this scenario is forecast or implied.

…

Or, there may be a different scenario.

The people who used loose credit to finance the expansion of their lifestyles may have been unintentional evangelists of a new form of inflation. One way of thinking about the folks who “got in trouble” is that they were wrestling with an unmeasured form of inflation. Because there was no way to engineer the raises required to keep up, the second best source of income was real estate equity. Rather than “large living over spenders”, perhaps these folks were just doing what they thought it took to stay even.

Although the press is beginning to demonize people who financed their lifestyles on second mortgages, the question is “what are they going to do without a funding mechanism?”

I think they’ll be asking for raises and when they don’t get them, they’ll be changing jobs.

Imagine this trend in conjunction with a mass departure of the Baby Boomer generation.  The implications on retention, hiring and wages would be beyond significant.

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