The Varying Unemployment Rate of Different Occupations
You may have read our article last month that boasts about the unemployment rate falling to 9 percent, the lowest since April 2009. This is potentially good news for many looking for jobs right now. However, this unemployment rate changes based on occupation. Some positions are going to have a much lower unemployment rate, while other will have a significantly higher rate.
The 10 occupations with the lowest unemployment rates range from .4 percent to 1.0 percent. 5 of the 10 occupations with the lowest unemployment rate are in healthcare showing that this industry is growing. The 10 occupations with the lowest unemployment rates are:
- Appraisers and assessors of real estate: 0.4%
- Therapists, all other: 0.4%
- First-line managers of police and detectives: 0.4%
- Locomotive engineers and operators: 0.4%
- Directors, religious activities and education: 0.8%
- Dentists: 0.8%
- Speech-language pathologists: 0.8%
- Detectives and criminal investigators: 0.8%
- Physicians and surgeons: 0.9%
- Occupational therapists: 1.0%
On the other hand, there are some occupations that are seeing a significantly higher unemployment rate. Of the 10 occupations with the highest rate, 7 are in construction. The 10 occupations with the highest unemployment rates are:
- Helpers, construction trades: 36.0%
- Telemarketers: 34.8%
- Structural iron and steel workers: 28.4%
- Roofers: 27.1%
- Millwrights: 25.5%
- Cement masons, concrete finishers and terrazzo workers: 25.3%
- Brickmasons, blockmasons, and stonemasons: 25.1%
- Construction laborers: 25.0%
- Drywall installers, ceiling tile installers, and tapers: 23.9%
- Interviewers, except eligibility and loan: 23.4%
*Information last updated January 12, 2011
Goldstein, Jacob. “Which Jobs Have The Highest And Lowest
Unemployment Rates?.” NPR (2011): n. pag. Web. 2 Mar 2011. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/01/12/132859364/which-jobs-have-the-highest-and-lowest-unemployment-rates>.
Stronger Employment Trends Expected in 2011
The unemployment rates in 2010 have been the highest in well over twenty years. It has been a difficult year for the unemployed who have had trouble finding a position in their field. With many mass layoffs by United States based companies, the job market has become extremely competitive. There have been a record number of applications for many open positions, which makes it difficult to land a career in your specialized field.
However, stronger employment trends are expected in 2011. Harris Interactive conducted a survey of more than 2,400 hiring managers and human resource specialists. The results of this survey concluded that more employers plan to add more full-time employees in 2011 than in 2010. Job creation will be gradual, but steady, so the change in hiring may not become immediately apparent. Matt Ferguson of CareerBuilder explains that, “More than half of employers reported they are in a better financial position today than they were one year ago.” This is a good improvement and will allow these companies to hire more employees in 2011.
The results of the survey showed that 24% of employers plan to hire full-time, permanent in employees in 2011. This is an improvement from the 20% who said they plan to hire in 2010, and 14% in 2009. 13% of employers said they expect to hire part-time employees in 2011, which is up from 11% in 2010 and 9% in 2009.
Some fields will be in higher demand during 2011 than others. The top 10 fields can be seen below:
1) Sales – 27 percent
2) Information Technology – 26 percent
3) Customer Service – 25 percent
4) Engineering – 21 percent
5) Technology – 19 percent
6) Administrative – 17 percent
7) Business Development – 17 percent
8 ) Marketing – 17 percent
9) Research/Development – 15 percent
10) Accounting/Finance – 14 percent
“Stronger Employment Trends Expected for the New Year, According to CareerBuilder’s 2011 Job Forecast.” ShareBuilder (2010): n. pag. Web. 26 Jan 2011. <http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?id=pr611&sd=12/29/2010&ed=12/31/2010>.
Meet the Hire Velocity Team
In our last blog post we discussed about the importance of making sure your organization and the RPO firm you choose are compatible with each other. We also commented on the importance of choosing an RPO with the experience to back what is promised in the Service Level Agreement. At Hire Velocity, we are confident that you will be impressed with our experienced team and will enjoy the long-lasting partnership created when you make the move to outsource your some or all of recruiting tasks.
We would like to virtually introduce you to the Hire Velocity top management team. While we focus on the top management in this post, but we can assure you that our entire team is experienced in the recruiting industry. Hire Velocity understands the importance of having qualified and caring employees. For that reason, we have high standards when choosing to add new members to our team.
Valeri Marks
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Valeri is the Chief Executive Officer at Hire Velocity. She has been CEO or President for the past 10 years of private or public companies. The entire team was excited when she joined the team in July 2009. Since her addition to the team, Hire Velocity has been named on the Inc 5000 list of fastest growing private companies.
Valeri has over 28 years of service industry experience. Her experience spans raising funds, selling companies, integrating acquisitions, and an IPO. Valeri has an MBA, with distinction, from the University of Michigan.
Byron West
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Hire Velocity considers itself very lucky to have Byron West as our President. As a seasoned recruiting entrepreneur, Byron provides the vision and leadership at Hire Velocity. With over 20 years as top management in recruiting companies, Byron is excellent at understanding critical personnel needs without organizations and their importance to success.
Before his move into the entrepreneur world, Byron was a member of the Navy’s Submarine Division. He uses his military skills to assemble efficient and effective teams. He is directly involved in the hiring and training of our team members, ensuring that each one is qualified to be working within the company. As an advocate for efficiency and innovation, Byron demonstrates his intense desire to overcome obstacles and win for his customers.
Byron graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Civil Engineering.
Matt Dawson
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Matt Dawson is Hire Velocity’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Hire Velocity is happy to have such an experienced individual to oversee finance, accounting, human resources, and all administrative/back office functions. Matt is also responsible for developing relationships with strategic partners and reviews competitive analysis.
Matt has over 12 years of experience in the Fortune 500, private equity, and smaller entrepreneurial companies across the business services and healthcare sectors. His expertise encompasses all facets of finance and business strategy, including capital-raising activities, business valuation, turnarounds, due diligence and financial modeling.
Matt is a graduate of University of Louisville with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. Matt also holds an MBA from University of Tampa.
Jennifer Maher
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Jennifer Maher joined the Hire Velocity team in September as the Senior Director of Client Services. Jennifer joins the team with over 12 years of experience in RPO, staffing, and outsourcing organizations across the retail, telecommunications, consumer electronics, and manufacturing verticals. Her experience includes restructuring and building high performing, high volume service delivery organizations, consultative selling, selecting and implementing new technology solutions, and advanced sourcing strategy design.
As Senior Director of Client Services, Jennifer is responsible for the service delivery across all clients. She has led multiple teams to successfully hire 5000+ people per year across the United States and Canada, while reducing time to hire, increasing overall quality of hire, and reducing turnover.
Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Miami with a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration in Accounting.
Now that you know our team, we invite you to contact us to set up a time to talk. It is hard to judge the quality of our team from a blog post and we are confident you will be impressed with us after talking with the team. You can contact us here.
An RPO SWOT Analysis
Using a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) firm to outsource your hiring is something to be seriously considered when stepping up your recruitment efforts. However, it is important to choose the right RPO or the results may not be what was expected going into the deal. RPO providers have strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats like every other aspect of business.
In choosing the right RPO, you will have some major strengths to consider. RPO firms typically lead to large cost savings; for example, Hire Velocity can drive down your recruiting costs by as much as 50%. Not only that, but outsourcing all or some of your recruiting efforts allows your recruiters and hiring managers more time to focus on other important business functions. It also provides your business the ability to scale up or down as needed gaining a flexible recruiting advantage. Another strength of using an RPO firm is the speed and quality of recruiting. An effective RPO can reduce your time-to-hire and fill those open positions faster. But filling open positions faster should not affect the quality of the candidates. Reputable RPO firms will be able to deliver qualified, available, and interested candidates for your open positions. RPO providers are process driven and leverage Service Level Agreements (SLA) to measure, reward and sometimes penalize based on attainment of results. The SLA is such an important part of the RPO process because it details the expectations, objectives, needs, numbers, procedures, and quality of the candidates.
While there are numerous strengths for using an RPO, there can also be weaknesses if the right firm is not chosen. It is important to meet with the RPO and ensure that the partnership is a good fit since it will become an extension of your team. Choosing an RPO that cannot deliver on what you expect can cause it to have a negative impact on your business. It is important to look at the experience that the RPO firm has. For example, Hire Velocity has over 70 years of recruiting leadership on our team and the client list includes Fortune 500 retailers, private to public healthcare companies, Fortune 1000 telecom companies, and Fortune 100 technology companies.
Using an RPO can also have its opportunities. In general, RPO firms have a proven record for high hiring numbers across the industry. Organizations that have previously used a reputable RPO firm can attest to the positive results achieved during the partnership. The partnership created during the RPO experience is another opportunity for an organization. When requiring fast and cost-efficient hiring in the future, the partnership that was created with the RPO in the past will allow for a quick start to the recruiting requirements and ensure successful results based on previous experience with the organization.
As with any other business task, there are threats involved. One of the initial threats is finding that the organization and the RPO do not have a partner relationship. Again, this goes back to meeting with the RPO and making sure there is compatibility before choosing it. Additionally, a well thought-out SLA will provide guidance and avoid one party being unhappy with the partnership.
RPO SWOT
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Weaknesses
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Threats
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Seasonal hiring on the rise
The holiday season is right around the corner and retailers are preparing for an increase in foot traffic. 58 percent of stores expect to increase sales 6 percent this season compared to last year, according to the Michigan Retailers Association. These stores need to be able to meet the increasing demand and that means hiring temporary employees this season. There are tens-of-thousands of companies looking for season employees to help meet the customer demand. Additionally, many of these positions have the potential to turn into permanent employment.
Many companies see seasonal employment as an opportunity to attract and retain the best talent. Seasonal positions can be looked at as an audition and new hires should take initiative in showing how hardworking they are. JCPenney plans on hiring 30,000 seasonal workers this season, an increase from last year. Ann Marie Bishop, a spokeswoman for JCPenney, explains, “getting a seasonal position allows new associates to experience working at JCPenney and decide if it suits them.” She explains that the company sees seasonal hiring as an opportunity to attract and retail the best talent.
This increase in seasonal hiring does not come without great competition. According to Bloomberg, there are about five applications for each job opening. With about 15 million Americans without a job, there are a lot of people looking for employment, even if it is only temporary. While the increase in seasonal hiring looks appealing to the unemployed, it still may not make it easier to find a position this holiday season.
The Importance of RPO Service Level Agreements
Choosing a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) firm to outsource your hiring needs is a great choice when you’re focused on maximizing financial and operational results. To maximize the benefits of using an RPO, it is important to have a well-formulated Service Level Agreement, or SLA. An SLA is an agreement between the customer and the RPO that specifies expectations, objectives, needs, numbers, procedures, and quality of the candidates. This agreement is developed before the RPO begins working on the recruiting tasks and is the backbone of the partnership that is about to begin.
The SLA guides the success of the partnership between the internal recruiter and RPO. It helps guide the RPO to understand what types of candidates the customer is looking for, the process that will be used and the key metrics for success. By having these specific details outlined, the RPO will be able to work more efficiently and achieve better results.
The SLA can also be used as an incentive for the RPO to meet the outlined goals. By basing the part of the RPO’s compensation on meeting the goals, it will ensure the best results because the compensation is based off of the final result, their performance.
The typical RPO SLA is made of seven sections:
- Objectives and Needs Assessment – Defines exactly what the customer is looking for and what the final result should achieve.
- Scope Statement – Summarizes what process and methods that will be used to source and screen the candidates.
- Pricing and Cost Estimate – Outlines how the pricing works and the cost per resume, cost per qualified submission, or cost per hire.
- Organization Chart – Establishes the roles and responsibilities of each contributing member on each side.
- Measurements and Metrics – Discusses how performance will be measured and monitored.
- Work Schedules and Communication – Describes the expected hours of operation and how the two parties will communicate.
- Response and Escalation – Creates a communication plan for issues
Resources:
Anapol, Stan. “Recruiting Process Outsourcing: Using a Well-defined SLA and KPI to Engage the Right Vendor and Set Correct Expectations..” HR Management n. pag. Web. 9 Nov 2010. <http://www.hrmreport.com/article/Recruiting-Process-Outsourcing–Using-a-well-defined-SLA-and-KPI-to-engage-the-right-vendor-and-set-correct-expectations/>.