Falling short of expectations, the economy gained only 130,000 jobs in August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday.
The key takeaways from the the jobs report include:
- Over 157.9 million Americans are employed.
- The unemployment rate stayed steady at 3.7%.
- Manufacturers added only 3,000 jobs, which was disappointing.
- The number of newly employed people was greatly enhanced by the addition of 34,000 government jobs, including the mass hiring of temporary census workers for the 2020 population count.
The largest gains in August were attributed to professional and business services, which added 37,000 jobs. Healthcare positions increased by 24,000 and financial services realized a gain of 15,000.
Conversations with over 30 recruiters throughout the country confirm that they view the job market as very robust. The corporate demand, according to the executive search professionals, outweighs the supply of qualified candidates. With unemployment at a 50-year low, companies are experiencing trouble hiring people with the requisite skills and experience.
Jason Wachtel, founder and managing partner of JW Michaels & Co., a nationwide executive search firm, believes that we are finding ourselves in a very strong job market: “We are working on a large number of searches across all business sectors. There are not enough candidates to keep up with the demand.”
Dimitri Mastrocola, a partner at Major, Lindsey & Africa, specializing in placing high-end legal executives with top financial institutions said, “The current market for in-house counsel—general counsels and their teams—is the strongest it's been since the 2008 financial crisis.”
Jay D'Aprile, a specialist in placing C-suite executives with insurance companies at Slayton Search Partners, says that business is booming, but “the war for talent is over and talent won.” This demonstrates that the job market is tight and it's a challenge to find top talent.
Jake Vander Zanden, managing director of technology and life sciences practice at McDermott & Bull Executive Search, and Adam Bloom, president of the Stevenson Group, a mid-sized specialist firm with over 35 years in life sciences, see the healthcare and life sciences spaces as dynamic with an increasing demand for talent.
The manufacturing sector, however, was a sore spot in the August employment report. According to the Institute of Supply Management, American manufacturing contracted for the first time in three years.
In light of the headwinds faced by the possible repercussions from a trade war, an unbroken string of over 100 consecutive months of solid job gains and a record-setting stock market, the August report seems positive. It's rare to have such a streak of positive news for such a long stretch of time. While the recruiters I spoke with are highly optimistic about this trend continuing, some say that it might actually help if there was a slight pullback. They claim that this would cool it down somewhat, which would result in having more job seekers in the market, curtailed compensation demands and companies being able to hire the talent they need within their budgetary constraints.
While there's talk about an upcoming recession, the recruiters don’t see or feel it in their practices. Whether a recession happens or not, it's reasonable to conclude that after a 10-year, upward trajectory in the job market, economy and stock market, there most likely will be some pullback in the future. History shows that market cycles always happen and there’s no reason to believe that this period of solid growth will last forever.
