MORE GOOD NEWS ON JOBS
Last week in this space we discussed the tight job market, and the fact that it represented good news for the current crop of high school and college graduates. Now, more confirmation of a continuing trend in the job market comes from the temporary employment agency of Manpower. In their recent report, they noted that despite the continued rate increases from the Federal Reserve, only a handful of companies say they intend to cut staff in the next quarter, and most say they're desperately looking for people.
The latest quarterly report from Manpower indicated that a record number of companies would be seeking additional staff in the upcoming third quarter. This further reflects the continued strength of the longest economic expansion in our history. The growing need for workers, according to Manpower, is broadly based among almost all industries and regions of the country. Manpower says demand for employees is currently unprecedented in the 24 years it has been serving hiring intentions.
The Manpower report found that of the nearly 16,000 businesses surveyed, 35% anticipate adding further staff, 55% currently expect no change in the third quarter, and just 5% said they plan on cutting down on employees.
Of course, all of this is what the Fed has been worrying about. The Fed has raised interest rates by 1 ¾ points since June of last year in an attempt to slow down the rapid economic growth that has drained the nation's labor market of available workers. This has prompted fears that inflation will heat up if the firms find themselves forced to pay more to retain their existing staff, or hire new employees. In the meantime, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan has frequently warned that the main threat to low inflationary growth lies in the job market, which recently saw its unemployment rate fall to a 30-year low of 3.9%. Economists point to the tight labor markets as one reason why the Federal Reserve abandoned its quarter-point increases in interest rates recently, and moved to a more aggressive half-point increase. It was the first time in five years that the Fed moved interest rates by a half-point at one of their meetings.
The next Fed meeting is due on June 27th and 28th, and already the worrying has started. You know, 'will they or won't they, how much will they if they, and is this it, or is there more?' These discussions have preceded every Fed meeting for a year now, and it would almost be funny if it weren't so important. As I stated last week, I just can't believe, considering all his previous success, that Alan Greenspan now wants to be remembered as the guy who overplayed his hand and killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. So I continue to believe that we are near the end.
Back to the subject of jobs, a company that has provided a lot of jobs for a long time now, and created many throughout this country and the world, passed a milestone recently. I am talking about Intel; last month they sold their one-billionth flash memory chip since they introduced it a dozen years ago. The company plans to sell another billion chips over the next two years, with 66% of those chips likely going to the cellular device market.
Intel first introduced the flash memory chip in 1988 with the goal of enabling new products that could benefit from the technology's unique characteristics. Flash memory chips preserve information when a device is turned off, thus providing a small, rugged, mobile and low-powered digital alternative to disk drives, magnetic tape and film. Today, flash memories are found in thousands of common products, including mobile phones, MP3 music players, handheld PC organizers, handheld voice recorders and tapeless answering machines, in addition to such industrial products as network routers and cockpit voice recorders for the nation's airlines.
For those of you who recall the change in the world, I think it came on the front of our computers. If you recall, a number of years ago the key to every computer was "IBM compatible." Then one day all that changed, and the key to all computers, which still pretty much exists today, is "Intel Inside." So, congratulations to one of America's high-tech companies as they reach a milestone that has, I think, improved nearly everyone's life in one way or another.
(Tom Butenhoff is a First Vice President with J. E.
Liss & Company in Milwaukee. The views are his and not necessarily
those of Liss Financial Services or the Job Connection/Hiring
Network.)