Under the radar, there’s increasing evidence that employment is up, hiring is up, and the economy is recovering – and with it, the workers comp industry.
I had several conversations today that validated what I’ve been hearing for several weeks – there’s a good bit more new activity in manufacturing, construction, and logistics/transportation than there was a few months ago – activity that requires new hiring.
Evidence of this not-yet-in-the-official-reports trend comes from several sources, most importantly activity at occ health clinics. There’s been a lot of pre-employment screenings and physicals, drug testing for truck drivers and equipment operators, and a significant uptick in new workers comp injuries of late. The screenings and testings are obvious indicators of hiring, while the new injuries likely result from a faster pace of work, more overtime, and more temp workers doing jobs they are less than familiar with. (The data do indicate significant additional hiring of temp workers, with 17,000 new hires last month)
Last week’s employment report provides additional color – emplloyment was up for temporary workers and in construction. And, revisions for the two previous months indicated employment was actually higher than the original estimates.
Several work comp specialty managed care vendors are also seeing an influx of new claims, particularly among vendors that provide services common in the initial stages of a claim.
Anecdotally, (I know, a lot of this is anecdotal), I was speaking with the hiring manager for a Maine manufacturer; they have a bunch of open jobs that they can’t find ‘just the right person’ to fill. The manager was frustrated by the ops head’s inability to understand that the applicant pool wasn’t as deep or wide as he wanted. The net? There were several – actually, more than ‘several’, jobs that were going to be filled with people that may not have fit the ops boss’ specific criteria.
I bring this to your attention, dear reader, to suggest there are lots of employers looking for lots of workers, (three million workers, to be precise) but many of these employers are waiting to find just the right worker. It may well be they’ll soon give up their persnicketiness and start hiring who’s available. If – and when – that occurs, things will get better in a hurry.
What does this mean for you?
Very, very welcome news that the worst is almost behind us.
Sep
14
I also read something last week (a blurb really) that there were no longer enough long haul truck drivers because many had been laid off earlier in the recession. Now there is a shortage of experienced drivers and goods are not being delivered timely. Also kind of good news…for employment at least.
“many of these employers are waiting to find just the right worker. It may well be they’ll soon give up their persnicketiness and start hiring who’s available.”
Joe,
As a legal immigrant to the US, there are still some cultural aspects in the US workplace I can’t fathom.
In this instance, US employers seem to be obsessed in avoiding to provide on the job training.
Is there any (logical) rationale to that? Isn’t there an opportunity cost that comes with such practices? I wonder if employers really do the math sometimes.
Thanks for this blog. One of my mandatory reads.
I am having to leave the house earlier than ever to avoid traffic on my commute. There has been no new residential construction in the area, so I assume this means improvement in the employment situation. So I’d call this an acceptable bad news/good news trade-off.