Business/Finance – Jobs. Trends. Insight.

Business & Finance Job Postings up 22% from Last Year, Continued Growth in Corporate Hiring

By Charles Thibault and Harold Biswas on June 24, 2010 in BLS Nonfarm Employment, Business/Finance.

190,000 Business Operations & Financial Specialist job ads have been posted online over the past three months. This is an extra 35,000 job postings compared to the the same time last year, a 22% growth according to data from WANTED Analytics™, which tracks online job postings on over a thousand job boards. Job ads are unduplicated across sites, and only paid-for job postings are included in this analysis.

Hiring Demand growth in Business & Finance occurred in all major metro areas and job types. The largest growth occurred in the New York City and Stamford, Connecticut areas.

A particularly relevant and important result is that hiring for Personnel Recruiters has more than doubled compared to last year. There were over 10,000 new job ads posted for recruiters in March, April, and May 2010, compared to only 4,600 for the same period last year. This is a very positive sign: corporations are hiring the workers responsible for future hiring.

Finance, Health Care, IT Stocks Lose Momentum as Hiring Slows

By Charles Thibault on February 2, 2010 in Business/Finance, Computer/Math/IT, Finance - XLF, Health Care, Health Care - XLV, Information Technology - XLK, S&P 500 - SPY.

Several stock market industry segments have taken hits over the past two or three weeks as the labor market situation deteriorated slightly during the second half of January.

Health Care stocks are down 2.9% over the last two weeks (XLV); Information Technologies stocks are down 9.5% over the last three weeks (XLK); and Finance stocks are down 7% over the last three weeks (XLF). The 4-week moving average of new unemployment insurance claims has gone up two weeks in a row.

Hiring in these three sectors – Finance, Health Care, and Information Technologies – has slowed in the past two weeks too, falling off the positive trend they started in September. What's worse, year-over-year hiring improvements have swung from positive to negative in these sectors.

The following analysis confirms a great Q4 in terms of GDP growth (+5.7% annualized), but also suggests that growth rates are slowing.

Let's first take a second to make sure we're not presenting conflicting information about the labor market situation, particularly compared to the Conference Board's Help Wanted Online series which uses the "same" data as we present here (HWOL). That series uses a "mid-month to mid-month" time-frame in order to match the BLS's sampling framework which measures national employment on the 14th day of each month. In early January, we did see some positive labor market signals. However, national Hiring Demand fell by 3.7% two weeks ago (after the HWOL sampling period closed). Since January 19th, the S&P 500 index has lost 4.3% too. This is after the S&P 500 gained 3.6% during the first couple of weeks of January on positive December UI claims data.

The following table compares year-over-year changes in sector Hiring Demand (the number of new online job ads) and weekly returns of sector Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). Sector ETFs are tradable securities which mimic the composition and returns of the different sector indices developed by Standard & Poor's. Sector indices are sub-components of the S&P 500.

Source: WANTED Analytics, Google Finance

Finance Down 8,800 – September 2009 BLS Preliminary Report

By Juli Morris on October 2, 2009 in BLS Nonfarm Employment, Business/Finance.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics today reported a loss of 8,800 jobs in the Finance and Insurance sector for September, following a revised loss of 18,200 jobs reported by the BLS for August. Losses of 7,400 jobs in the Banking sector were the largest component of the overall employment decline.

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The Financial Services Hiring Demand Indicator–a measure of year-over-year change in online job advertising– rose for the fifth consecutive month, from -27 percent in August to -25 percent in September.
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FORECAST: September 2009 – Finance Down 7,700

By Charles Thibault on September 28, 2009 in BLS Nonfarm Employment, Business/Finance.

WANTED Technologies forecasts that the BLS will announce an loss of 7,700 workers in the Finance and Insurance industry in September (NAICS supersector 52). Last month, the Finance and Insurance industry lost 20,000 workers.

The number of online job ads for Financial Specialists grew by 7.0% on a seasonally adjusted basis from last month, after declining 2% in August. This improvement in Hiring Demand dampens job losses but is not strong enough to produce gains in employment.

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its Preliminary August Estimate for the Finance and Insurance sector as part of its Employment Situation report on Friday, October 2, at 8:30 AM.

WANTED Technologies also forecasts employment counts within selected industry sub-groups. We forecast losses of 1,600 workers in the Credit Intermediation sector (NAICS 522), a loss of only 300 workers in the Securities, Commodity Contracts, and Other Financial Investments sector (NAICS 523), and a loss of 6,600 workers in Insurance Carriers (NAICS 524).

Finance Down 20,000 – August 2009 BLS Preliminary Report

By Juli Morris on September 4, 2009 in BLS Nonfarm Employment, Business/Finance.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics today reported a loss of 20,000 jobs in the Finance and Insurance sector for August, following a revised loss of 15,100 jobs reported by the BLS for July. Losses of 12,800 loss in the Insurance sector were the largest component of the overall employment decline.

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The Financial Services Hiring Demand Indicator–a measure of year-over-year change in online job advertising– rose for the fourth consecutive month, from -32 percent in July to -27 percent in August. Outside of the Insurance sector, the level of job losses has generally been improving over the past several months.
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FORECAST: August 2009 — Finance Down 8,000

By Juli Morris on August 26, 2009 in BLS Nonfarm Employment, Business/Finance.

WANTED forecasts a loss of 8,000 jobs in the Finance and Insurance sector for August, the smallest loss for this sector since July 2008. This follows a smaller-than-expected loss of 12,900 jobs reported by the BLS for July. WANTED Technologies' Hiring Demand Indicator (the yellow line in the chart below) for Financial Services showed another solid uptick in August, coming off of a three-year low in April.

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The Financial Services Hiring Demand Indicator–a measure of year-over-year change in online job advertising– rose for the fourth consecutive month, from -32 percent in July to -27 percent in August. The trend in Hiring Demand in Financial Services had been moving steadily downward from a peak it reached in March 2007 prior to the onset of the recession in December 2007, reaching a bottom that appeared to occur in April at -48 percent.

Hiring Demand up 18% in July at Largest Financial Firms

By Juli Morris on August 21, 2009 in Business/Finance.

We reported last month that Hiring Demand at the ten major financial institutions repaying TARP funds declined 11 percent in June from its May level. The overall trend for Q2 2009, however, has been strong growth, with online job ads for these firms up 60 percent in July over their Q1 low in February. July's 18 percent month-over-month gain puts Hiring Demand at the nation's largest financial firms solidly above its three-year, pre-Recession high in September 2007.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

Online job ads posted by J.P. Morgan Chase now constitute 67 percent of the total number of new ads in July (up 7 percent from June), with the largest concentration of job ads falling under the following categories: Tellers; Sales Agents, Financial Services; Financial Managers, Branch or Department; Personal Financial Advisers; Loan Officers; and Computer Specialists.

The top five hiring markets for these firms (by MSA) are New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Dallas-Fort Worth.

While positive earnings news and announcements of hiring plans continue to roll in, the sector still faces serious challenges:

The specter of a systemic collapse in the U.S. banking system has faded, largely because the government has shored up the industry with $250 billion in taxpayer-funded capital since last fall, most of it going to big banks. But more than 20% of all banks reported a net loss in the first quarter, the latest period for which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has figures, and problems are now building in small and medium institutions. Mortgage-delinquency rates and losses on credit cards are at all-time highs. The accumulating bad assets and need for capital mean few banks are lending aggressively, creating a drag on the economic recovery.

The ten financial firms granted permission by the Treasury in early June to begin repaying government-bailout funds received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program are: J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp and BB&T Corp., American Express Co., Capital One Financial Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp., State Street Corp. and Northern Trust Corp.

Best Places to Look for Work – Financial Analysts

By Charles Thibault on August 11, 2009 in Business/Finance.

The best place for Financial Analysts (SOC 132051) to search for work is the combined Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD area, taking into account both the Supply/Demand Ratio and the total count of online job ads.

Three major cities in Florida exhibit strong Hiring Demand for Financial Analysts: Tampa (S/D 190), Jacksonville (S/D 185), and Orlando (S/D 159).

Other areas that show strong demand for Financial Analysts are Omaha, NE (S/D 227); Portland, OR (S/D 204); San Diego, CA (S/D 169); or even St.Louis, MO (S/D 163).

WANTED's Supply/Demand Ratios™ measure Hiring Demand for an occupation relative to the number of workers already employed in that occupation in a geographic market. S/D Ratios are measured on an index scale, with values greater than 100 indicating Hiring Demand stronger than the national average.

S/D results are summarized in this table and "heat map", both of which are available on our Supply/Demand Ratios page.

Source: WANTED Supply/Demand Ratios

Finance Down 12,900 – July 2009 BLS Preliminary Report

By Juli Morris on August 7, 2009 in BLS Nonfarm Employment, Business/Finance.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics today reported a loss of 12,900 jobs in the Finance and Insurance sector for July, following a revised loss of 19,600 jobs reported by the BLS for June. WANTED Technologies' Hiring Demand Indicator (the yellow line in the chart below) for Financial Services showed another solid uptick in July, coming off of a three-year low in April.

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The Financial Services Hiring Demand Indicator–a measure of year-over-year change in online job advertising– rose for the third consecutive month, from -37 percent in June to -32 percent in July. The trend in Hiring Demand in Financial Services had been moving steadily downward from a peak it reached in March 2007 prior to the onset of the recession in December 2007, reaching a bottom that appeared to occur in April at -48 percent.
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Forecast July 2009 – Finance down 14,400

By Charles Thibault on July 30, 2009 in BLS Nonfarm Employment, Business/Finance.

Based on slowing year-over-year drops in Hiring Demand in the financial sector, WANTED's forecasting models predict that employment will drop by only 14,400 workers in the Finance and Insurance Industry in July (BLS series CES5552000001). Hiring Demand is down 32% compared to last year. Last month this industry lost 18,200 jobs when Hiring Demand was down 36%.

WANTED also forecasts employment in three detailed financial industry segments, each of which is reviewed below. Financial sector job losses are concentrated in the "Credit Intermediation and Related Activities" segment, where we forecast a reduction of 10,800 workers. WANTED predicts that the BLS will report only very minimal losses in both the "Securities, Commodity Contracts, Investments" and "Insurance Carriers and Related Activities" segments.

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Hiring Demand in the "Credit Intermediation and Related Activities" segment has improved in relative terms but not fast enough – Hiring Demand has only improved six percentage points since last month, down 25.6% from last year. We predict job losses of 10,800 workers in this segment (BLS series CES5552200001). Last month, this segment lost 10,200 jobs with Hiring Demand down 31.6%.

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