Job Outlook

Jobless claims last week fell to 358,000, (one of) the lowest levels in months, the Labor Department reported.

The four-week moving average, which smooths out seasonal fluctuations, fell to 366,250, nearly a four-year low.

“It not only validates the gains that we had last month … but it shows that we are likely to add to those gains in a meaningful way in February,” Millan Mulraine, senior macro strategist at TD Securities in New York, told Reuters.

Meanwhile, the picture is only somewhat less rosy for those receiving continuing claims: for the week of January 16-20, 4 million Americans were receiving regular unemployment checks from their states, about half a million fewer than a year ago, and 2.98 were receiving emergency unemployment benefits, about one million fewer than last year.

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The good news this morning (economy added almost a quarter-million jobs last month!) doesn’t, it seems, extend to the media market.

As we mentioned, the industries that added the most jobs were hospitality, health care, retail, and office temps.

Doesn’t give too much data about how PR people, marketers, ad pros and journalists are faring, though obviously anecdotal evidence suggests that we don’t have the most opportunities out there.

We’re trying to get slightly more scientific. As regular readers know, about three times a week, we look at the number of jobs posted on four media job boards. Here’s what the month of January’s looked like on mediabistro’s OWN job board, in terms of how many jobs are posted on any given day.

As you can see, 2010 was a pretty bad year (as expected—it was the height of the recession), but while the rest of the economy has continued to heal through 2011 and into 2012, with the unemployment rate falling just as much as it did from 2010 to 2011, the media industry, at least judging by this metric, is stagnant.

Hopefully we’ll see more jobs for media pros soon. But it does seem like we’re not catching up like everyone else.

The unemployment rate fell more than predicted and the economy added more jobs than expected in January, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics announced today.

Employment increased by 243,000, with gains mostly in hospitality, health care, retail and office temps, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent.

While this seems like good news on the face of it, there’s still a long journey to recovery ahead. There were still 5.5 million long-term unemployed (and the longer you are unemployed the harder it is to get re-employed), 8.2 million underemployed, and 2.8 million who were not working but were not counted as unemployed because they hadn’t looked for a job in the past four weeks.

Still, the numbers of long-term unemployed and discouraged workers hadn’t significantly increased over the past year, and remain much the same.

The economy has added about 2 million jobs over the past year.

According to Romenesko and a tipster of his, the AP has let go 10 staffers, including three bureau chiefs, two assistant bureau chiefs, two in AP images, entertainment reporter Rosalie Fox, and a photo editor.

The AP is also killing its premium personal finance wire, but reassigning the five staffers who worked on it, a separate tipster said.

According to the Tennessee Ticket blog, one of the AP staffers affected was Bill Poovey, the only AP Chattanooga correspondent.

Today the AP also announced that it is reinstating its internship programs after a one-year hiatus. When the news service initially announced the yearlong break, some didn’t believe the internships would ever return, so chalk one up for small victories.

The week ended Jan. 28 saw new jobless claims fall more than expected—by 12,000 to 367,000, a level very near to what is considered growth by many economists.

The Labor Department announced today that roughly 7.6 million people were receiving continuing benefits or emergency extended benefits the week of Jan. 14, 1.7 million fewer people than were receiving benefits the same time a year ago.

Speaking of tomorrow’s Labor Department release of January jobs figures, economist Christopher Low told Reuters that today’s jobless claims figure “certainly suggests we will continue to see job growth at the higher end of the recent range (which has been between) 100,000 to 200,000.”

However, other analysts, including the CBO, have said that the unemployment rate may remain above 8 percent until 2014, so it may be too early to break out the champagne.

Small businesses drove most of the growth, adding 95,000 jobs, mostly in the service sector, payroll giant ADP said today.

Overall, the economy added 170,000 jobs in the private sector, a smaller increase than the increase in December (which was revised downward to 292,000) but fairly well in line with the job gains over the past six months or so.

The slowdown may be explained by the “purge effect,” which we mentioned last month—basically, it’s an accounting glitch that may explain why the December numbers were so (artificially) high.

The official Labor Department report, due Friday, is expected to show a 145,000 gain and an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent.

After falling two weeks ago to the lowest level since April 2008, claims last week sprung back up to 377,000, the Labor Department announced today.

This is exactly what’s been happening over the past month or so: claims fall to ridiculously low levels (lowest in 3.5 years!) and then spring back up.

The overall trend, however, has been one of improvement since September 2011, with the four-week moving average, which smooths out volatility, steadily declining from 422,000 or so to 380,000.

“The job-market recovery remains on track,” Scott Brown, an economist who forecast claims would rise to 380,000, told Bloomberg. “The underlying trend is moderately low layoffs. We certainly have seen a lot volatility in the week to week numbers.”

Unlike last week, no state’s data was estimated, a labor official told Reuters.

Jobseekers may be more able to find a little “wiggle room” in job offers, a new survey from Robert Half reports.

The staffing firm asked 1600 CFOs from US and Canadian companies with 20 or more employees how willing they would be to negotiate salaries with top job candidates, compared to twelve months ago.

While most of the CFOs (54%) said their willingness had not changed, 27 percent were “somewhat more willing” and 11 percent were “much more willing,” with only 5 percent saying they were less willing.

“Job seekers, especially those with skills in high demand, are gaining leverage in salary discussions today,” Robert Half CEO Max Messmer said in a statement.

Robert Half concludes with seven good strategies for getting the best deal in negotiations.

They are:

• Do a reality check. Is the firm in a position to bargain? Find out before attempting any salary negotiation. If you’ve been offered a job at a newly formed startup, or a company that recently announced layoffs or weak financial results, your leverage may be limited.
• Get your figures right. Don’t enter negotiations without doing your homework. Research the latest salary trends for your city, industry and job title by reviewing compensation surveys and publications such as Robert Half’s 2012 Salary Guides and talking to colleagues and recruiters.
• Don’t jump the gun. Wait for the hiring manager to bring up salary in the discussion, and make sure you fully understand the requirements of the position before answering questions about your desired pay. Ask prospective employers what they think would be an appropriate range for the position so you can avoid giving a range that is too high or low.
• Go for your goal. If offered a salary figure that doesn’t meet your expectations, it’s OK to request additional compensation. Employers may start at the lower end of their salary range, leaving room to negotiate.
• Don’t bluff. It’s never a good move to mislead a prospective employer about your current compensation or other higher-paying job offers in an effort to get more money. Instead, reiterate the value you can bring to the firm, and be honest about your desired salary.
• Think beyond the paycheck. Be sure to look at the full picture when evaluating a job offer. A generous benefits package or opportunities to learn and grow with the company may compensate for a lower starting salary, for example.
• End on a high note. If negotiations aren’t successful and you decide to walk away from an offer, remember to do so gracefully. You never know when you might cross paths with the hiring manager again.

The number of people filing for unemployment benefits last week dropped to 352,000, the lowest level since April 2008, the Department of Labor announced today.

The four-week moving average fell 5,000 to 379,000.

However, a Labor Department spokesperson said that volatility is common this time of year, especially this week when some states’ data had to be estimated because of the MLK holiday.

Economists had forecast that claims would drop by 19,000.

For the week ended Dec. 31, 7.8 million Americans were receiving some form of unemployment assistance, including 3 million who had exhausted their regular state checks and were receiving emergency extended checks.

We have written about all kinds of robot journalists before but here, from the WSJ, is an explanation why in this “economic recovery,” companies have been more willing to spend money on equipment than people.

Temporary tax breaks, the Journal says, meant that any capital purchase last year could be written off 100% for the first year. And that’s part of the reason why productivity has increased while hiring has remained anemic at best.

“History suggests that investment that increases productivity eventually will create jobs and raise living standards,” the Journal continues. “The mechanization of the farm and the automation of the factory both raised fears of permanent unemployment that were unrealized, as efficiencies in production of basic commodities created jobs in all sorts of services.”

But in the short run, that just means fewer jobs to go around.

This effect isn’t confined to machines, either. White-collar companies are investing in software rather than new personnel—which is great for the software companies, says Jason Furman, deputy director of the White House’s National Economic Council.