Job market struggles
By Kevin Smith, Staff Writer© Pasadena Star-News, July 13, 2010
The nation's employment picture continues to look grim.
Figures released Tuesday by the Labor Department reveal that job openings declined in May from the previous month, while layoffs edged up.
Job openings fell by 96,000 to 3.2 million in May, leaving 15 million unemployed workers. The ratio of unemployed people to job openings was 4.7-to-1 in May, a slight increase from the revised April ratio of 4.6-to-1.
In California, 2.27 million people were unemployed in May, slightly down from 2.29 million the previous month and down from 2.30 million in March, the Labor Department reported.
Gary Kaplan, president of Gary Kaplan & Associates, a Pasadena-based executive search firm, said his office felt a distinct change in May.
"We saw a pick-up in business that began in September of 2009 and it continued until April of this year," he said. "Then things just went into a standstill again. If you look at business in general, it was pretty much a universal phenomenon."
Kaplan attributes the slowdown to a number of factors.
"We had the situation where the stock market went south in May, and there was also great concern with the economic situation in Greece and Portugal ... all of that created somewhat of a perfect storm."
The Labor Department's report, known as the Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey, illustrates how competitive the job market is. There were about 4.7 unemployed people, on average, for each job opening in May. That's down from the peak of 6.3 last November, but is much higher than the 1.8 unemployed per opening when the recession began in December 2007.
"I think there was cautious optimism that was going on for eight or nine months where people were sticking their toe back in the water and making hiring decisions," Kaplan continued. "But when all of these economic factors came into play ... it created a logjam."
May's job openings are 37 percent above the low point of 2.3 million openings in July 2009. But the figure is still far below pre-recession levels of about 4.5 million.
Los Angeles County's jobless rate rose to 12.3 percent in May from a revised 12.2 percent the previous month, according to the state Employment Development Department.
New unemployment figures are scheduled to be released Friday.
Steven Norris, founder and principal of Norris Realty Advisors in Pasadena, said his business is essentially in a holding pattern.
"I've been in business for 30 years and I've never seen anything like this," he said. "We don't anticipate that we'll do any hiring for at least the next 12 months."
Norris figures the nation's economy is in for a long and painful recovery.
"It's just going to take a long time for this to work out," he said. "This will not be a V-shaped recovery. I don't expect a double-dip. I think it'll be more like a long L that eventually will look like a U."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
