Joe W., You have always looked at the bigger picture and I didn't think it would matter in the world of storage networking. If any good people lost their jobs recently it wasn't for long....
Firms sweep up laid-off workers
Managers re-employed 37% faster than a year ago
By Cecily Fraser, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 5:02 PM ET Apr 10, 2001
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - Management employees who lost jobs in the first quarter found new ones 37 percent faster than a year earlier, snatched up by companies desperate for talent even in a weakening U.S. economy, according to a new study.
Companies "are taking the chance now to get those people back on."
John Challenger,Challenger, Gray & Christmas
Fired executives and managers took 2.27 months to find new positions in the first quarter, down from 3.58 months a year ago, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. That was the shortest median job-search time recorded in the 15 years that Challenger has tracked the data.
With unemployment rates at record lows through the fourth quarter, many employers chose not to hire in the second half of 2000 because they couldn't find the right people to upgrade their workforce.
Companies "are taking the chance now to get those people back on," said John Challenger, chief executive of the outplacement firm.
Companies that delay hiring risk falling behind the competition, Challenger said. In the time it takes to bring new executives or managers up to speed, business plans and customer service may suffer, which can lead to competitors taking away valuable market share, he said.
The study also linked the decline in job-search time to a surplus of dot.com workers now in the labor market. Old and New Economy companies alike tend to favor dot.com workers for their high-tech skills and entrepreneurial abilities, experts said.
"The high-tech industry is still doing good," said Rudy Dew, head of a career-counseling firm in Torrance, Calif. "The days of large signing bonuses, company car and many of the big perks are gone, but the salaries are not reduced at all."
It's now taking Dew's clients about 2.5 months to find a new position, he said. On average, Challenger expects laid-off workers to find a new position in 3.2 months or less.
"In the past, not only did you have the unemployed looking for jobs, but you had a lot of people that were working and job hopping," Dew said. With the labor shakeout, "there are fewer people competing for the jobs now."
Demographics
Many companies favor more experienced employees who can hit the ground running when starting a new position. Discharged workers over 50 took about 2.26 months to find new positions in the first quarter, a faster rate than younger workers, and down 41 percent from 3.85 months last year.
"This seems to be a period of time where experience is in great demand," Challenger said.
Older workers proved valuable to small businesses, which are the largest employers in the country and were responsible for 75 percent of the net new jobs created during the 1990s, Challenger said.
A volatile labor marketThe results were surprising considering the layoffs that occurred in the first quarter, Challenger said. Job cuts, which began escalating in December, reached an estimated 540,519 for the three months, the highest since Challenger began tracking the number in 1993.
"The economy was running short on labor and companies were seeing orders they couldn't fill last summer into the fall," Challenger said. The results of the study " suggest that employers are gearing up for the next surge of growth in the fall."
Sectors in "growth mode" include energy, oil and gas, electrical power, aerospace defense, healthcare, mortgage banking and education and training, he said.
"Employment measures are lagging indicators, so it may be that things take hold before we see them in the employment numbers."
Henry Farber,Princeton University
While the study is encouraging, labor economists caution that it may be too early to tell if the job market will be stronger by fall. About 86,000 jobs were lost in March, representing the biggest monthly loss since November 1991, the Labor Department said last week. The U.S. jobless rate is now 4.3 percent. See full story.
"Employment measures are lagging indicators, so it may be that things take hold before we see them in the employment numbers," said Henry Farber, an economics professor at Princeton University.
If the economy continues to head south, that's likely to sap employer confidence and make some firms reluctant to hire, while workers will be less likely to quit and look for new jobs, Farber said.
"I would expect to see relatively slow employment growth over the next year," he said.
The Challenger Index is based on a quarterly survey of 3,000 discharged managers and executives from a wide range of industries nationwide.
Cecily Fraser is Assistant Personal Finance Editor for CBS.MarketWatch.com in San Francisco.
PS I liked that IDC snippet so much am going to post it again...
Session 4.3 Fibre Channel’s Momentum
Eric Sheppard, Research Analyst, Storage Systems, IDC
With momentum on its side, Fibre Channel components are expected to account for the vast majority of Storage Area Network (SAN) interconnects through 2004. Mr. Sheppard will size the Fibre Channel components market, rank the vendors playing in this space and forecast the market through 2004Coverage will include Hubs, Directors, Loop and Fabric Switches and HBAs. Metrics will include both revenue and ports.
Anyone going to be at the IDC conference? Anyone who can get this new data ASAP? Thanks in advance. |
