How about a story on where the jobs are, not where they aren’t?
By Flickr user Eastern Washington University
We’ll be getting a fresh federal update on the nation’s unemployment rate tomorrow and most prognosticators expect a bigger decline in payrolls than we saw for January, with bad weather among the factors delaying the job market’s recovery.
Be sure to check out the state and metro area data on employment, hours and earnings, too, when it’s released March 10.
But for a change, instead of dwelling on who’s out of work and where the jobs are not, consider a “who’s hiring” package. Or, better yet, an ongoing job-openings feature that will keep your audience clicking back for more. A bonanza of fresh data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics – aside from the unemployment rate – helps the story make even more sense now.
On March 9, the BLS will release the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which includes job openings by industry by region.
One of my area TV stations, Fox 2 Detroit, broadcasts a daily “Jobs Shop” feature on its morning newscast – detailing a particular employment opening including required qualifications, location and all-important wage information. The info is then incorporated into the station’s extensive job-hunting portal. I have to say it’s a very simple yet compelling feature that always piques my curiosity. Ponder a local version as a standing sidebar to your economic reports.
Sources of information would include your state’s workforce commission, recruiting and headhunting firms, classified advertising, job lists at alumni associations, college and university career offices and temporary staffing firms, which also often handle permanent placements.
Mine these venues for articulate managers with a bit of writing skill and you can probably also generate a standing job-hunters Q&A feature to help with readers’ employment and career dilemmas.
For example, I once garnered three excellent guest columnists for my paper by contacting the presidents of several local community colleges; they put me in touch with personable HR executives and business professors who ended up being very popular jobs-and-careers writers in our pages, for a couple of years. Caveat: Make sure you or another staffer screens reader questions for mass appeal, coherence and authenticity before forwarding to the experts. It helps to create a specialty e-mail address, like JobHelp@mynewsoutlet.com, that you control.
If you’re looking for hard data, delve further into the Bureau of Labor Statistics site. Earlier this week, the BLS highlighted a couple of new reports that will help generate who’s-hiring ideas:
“Gross jobs gains and losses in the second quarter of 2009.” This report is a component of the Business Employment Dynamics series, which isn’t as boring as it sounds. Interestingly, this summary shows an increase of 674,000 jobs in Q2 ’09 compared to Q1 — the largest over the quarter increase in gross job gains since the series began in 1992. While dated, this is the kind of trend information that you can talk with economists about in order to get their thoughts on where those job gains were and how 2010 will stack up.
Another data set from this series shows gross job gains and losses by industry; it’s a bit outdated but again a good source of trends in major sectors.
“Regional and State Unemployment, 2009 Annual Average Summary.” This 2009 round-up includes interesting narrative and state-by-state data that will help you add national and comparative context to your state’s unemployment picture.
Also of interest to readers is the latest version of the Occupational Outlook Handbook for 2010-2011. Note the reader friendly elements like job-search tips, a searchable database and wage information.
It would be interesting to correlate this outlook with public, private and individual placement efforts in your region. And on a more contrarian note, check up on some of the retraining and educational programs that displaced workers and taxpayers are paying for – and compare them to the government’s forecast for jobs in those lines of work. Are people being ripped off by getting certificates and diplomas in dead-end fields?
Other noteworthy sites include the BLS Career Guide to Industries and the employment/unemployment table of contents midway down on this page.
Be sure to talk with staffing firms, recruiters and executive search experts – press them for details about which jobs go begging, which draw the heaviest competition, salary trends and other nuts and bolts of the job-search jungle. Here’s a directory of all sorts of placement-industry trade associations which may help you find local members.
