A recent report from the Society of Human Resource Managers contained some very upbeat news for the economy and the jobless. The organization regularly surveys HR managers from private industry—people charged with hiring and firing—and found that though the labor market continues to struggle, hiring is up for the fifth month in a hiring.
Importantly, hiring rates are at levels not seen since June 2008, and the percentage of companies hiring in the service sector is the highest since since July 2007.
Today’s job cuts are related to strategy, rather than to recessionary pressure. With structural changes, it’s inevitable that strategy will change at organizations.
The report provided an intriguing example, which I’ll quote here. One of the largest planned job cuts announced in February 2010 came from pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., following its acquisition of competitor Schering-Plough. Database software company Oracle Corp. reported that there would be about 1,000 job cuts resulting from its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. At the same time, however, the company announced plans to add 2,000 workers over several months to support the newly acquired Sun businesses.
What does all this mean for your career? It’s very important to stay on top of the economy, your industry, the customer and the possible impact on your company. How do you do that? I’d keep my nose in magazines like Businessweek as well as trade journals.
The SHRM report is here.