Jobs. Trends. Insight. » Sales Occupations

Sales Jobs Growing 4.3% a Month – 15 Times Faster than before Recession

Charles Thibault — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:13:35 +0000

Hiring Demand for Sales & Related Occupations has been growing 4.3% a month since February, according to data from WANTED Analytics. WANTED Analytics tracks the number of online job ads on over 1,000 employment websites.

This positive trend has affected most metropolitan areas and detailed occupations in the Sales category (BLS Standard Occupation Major Group 410000).

The "normal" monthly growth rate experienced during the 2006/2007/2008 pre-recession period was only 0.3%. In other words, Hiring Demand is growing at almost 15 times the rate it did during normal economic times. Most of this can be attributed to "catching up", however – about 950,000 people lost their jobs in the Retail Industry for example, a 6% drop in employment. There are still 30,000 fewer Sales job ads now than there were 2 years ago (136,000 in October compared to 169,000 in November 2007).

The following table and graph detail Hiring Demand trends over the past four years. The natural log of the number of online job ads is used to facilitate trending analysis

Period	"Sales Jobs, Monthly Growth Rate"
OCT 2006 – MAY 2008	+0.3%
JUNE 2008 – JAN 2009	-5.2%
FEB 2009 – Current	+4.3%

Source: WANTED Analytics

The 'Top 4' Sales occupations in terms of job ad volume have all seen improvements since February. Hiring Demand for 'Retail Sales Workers' is almost back to pre-recession levels, and Hiring Demand for their Supervisors is also showing a very good trend. The only occupation to have seen a little bit of slippage in the past couple months are 'Wholesale Sales Representatives'.

Source: WANTED Analytics

The 'Top 5' US metro areas have also all seen improvements in Hiring Demand for Sales workers:

Source: WANTED Analytics

Hiring Demand up 2.4% in July and Trending Upwards

Charles Thibault — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:30:28 +0000

Hiring Demand improved 2.4% in July on a seasonally adjusted basis. There were 132,000 more new job ads in July, which now total 1,433,000.

With the exception of a three week period in June, Hiring Demand has been growing an average of 0.8% a week since March, or 3.6% a month for the past 4 months. This corresponds to the rally in the stock markets.

Improvements are spread across most sectors of the US economy. Seven of the top eight Metropolitan Areas improved, as did 19 of 23 broad Occupational groups covered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Four weeks ago, Hiring Demand was down 29.5% on a year-over-year basis. Hiring Demand is now down only 27.1% compared to last year. This relative improvement of 2.4% controls for seasonal fluctuations.

Source: WANTED Analytics

Hiring Demand is up 25.3% since last month in Washington as we detailed last week. In the Northeast, Hiring Demand is up 10% in Boston, 9% in New York, and 7% in Philadelphia. Across the rest of the United States, Hiring Demand is up 2.4% in Los Angeles, 1.9% in Atlanta, and 1.6% in Chicago. Only Dallas fell slightly, down 0.1%.

Source: WANTED Analytics

Hiring Demand has increased in most "business" occupations. Management Occupations are up 8.2%, Legal Occupations are up 6.6%, Business and Financial Occupations are up 4.1%, Sales Occupations are up 4.0%, Office and Administrative Occupations are up 3.2%, and Computer and Mathematical Occupations are up 2.3%.

Primary and secondary industries are also doing well. Production Occupations are up 5.0%, and Construction and Extraction Occupations are up 4.5%.

There are only two sore spots in the economy. Health Care Occupations are down 7.5%. Transportation is also down 6.2%. The Transportation industry lost 22,400 jobs in July, after having lost only 11,600 job in June.

Source: WANTED Analytics

The chart below compares June (gray) and July Hiring Demand (maroon). Hiring Demand is still weaker than it was last year, but is improving.

Full-size chart available on Jobs. Trends. Insight.

Hiring Demand Down 11% in June at Largest Financial Firms

Juli Morris — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:17:53 +0000

We reported last month that Hiring Demand at the ten major financial institutions repaying TARP funds was on the rise this Spring, with online job ads for these firms up 46 percent in May compared to February 2009, their first quarter low. These financial firms were granted permission by the Treasury in early June to begin repaying government-bailout funds received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

Hiring Demand at the same ten financial firms declined 11 percent in June from its May level, remaining 35 percent higher than the February low.

Despite recent positive news in the sector, such as robust earnings reports from JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, as well as from firms like Bank of America and Citigroup, the sector faces continuing difficulties in the second half of 2009. Losses by regional banks on commercial real estate loans are expected to top $30 billion in 2009, and 57 have already failed this year.

Online job ads posted by J.P. Morgan Chase constitute 60 percent of the total number of new ads in 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 ten financial institutions granted permission to begin repaying TARP funds 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.

Weekly Advertiser Watch

Charles Thibault — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:03:13 +0000

In our weekly feature, we detail job postings at the individual company level. Every week, WANTED produces a 'Gazelles' Report, which is meant to detect companies who's Hiring Demand has spiked.

Radio One (NASDAQ:ROIA) was a top gainer on July 17th. Radio One has appeared in three consecutive weekly Gazelles Reports. Its Hiring Demand for advertising, marketing, or sales related occupations marks strong growth in its core business.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

RadioShack (NYSE: RSH) has appeared in our Gazelles Report for five consecutive weeks. Its stock has appreciated more than 200% since March 9th, 2009. Hiring Demand at RadioShack has progressed in all major US markets. On an occupational level, Hiring Demand has surged for retail sales workers and their supervisors.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

SAIC (NYSE: SAI), short for Science Applications International Corporation, has seen its Hiring Demand rise by 50% since June. Hiring Demand for computer occupations has shown a nice progression. SAIC stock has been trading within a relatively stable $16-$18 bound since March.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

Finally, Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) has shown a slight softening in its Hiring Demand, matched by softening of its stock price.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

June '09 Hiring Demand Outlook: Slippage, but Poised for Upward Trending

Charles Thibault — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:15:35 +0000

Last month we reported that National Hiring Demand was improving in relative terms – year-over-year percent changes improved from -32.6% in April 2009 to -28.4% in May of 2009. Hiring Demand has slipped slightly since last month, with year-over-year percentage changes moving from -27.2% in May to -30.1% in June. (Slight revisions to data cause minor variations in Hiring Demand percent changes when compared to previously published results).

This month's slippage is particularly due to a robust month of May – on a seasonally adjusted basis May's Hiring Demand was up 10% compared to April. Because of May's increase in Hiring Demand, in combination with improving month-over-month declines in Nonfarm Payroll Employment (the revised drop for May was -322,000, whereas April's final number was -519,000), WANTED had forecast an optimistic drop of 260,000 in Nonfarm Payroll Employment. Despite the slight slippage this month, Hiring Demand has moved from "being flat" to starting to show signs of a possible uptrend.

The two time-series charts of new online job ads, one weekly series and one monthly series, show that since the drop off in December, Hiring Demand has been slowly inching up. (Usually the series "bounces back" in January, but, given the recession, new job ads did not come back to the previous calendar year's level.) This corresponds to slightly improving UI claims data and slowing in the month-over-month drops in US Employment.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

Only three major occupations have shown relative improvement this month, with 20 other occupations showing slippage in Hiring Demand. Sales and Related Occupations improved by 5.7% in June after improving 1.2% in May. Healthcare Support Occupations improved by 1.4% after having improved 6.5% in May. Transportation and Material Moving Occupations improved only marginally by 0.2%, after having seen a decline of 5.6% in May.

Full-size chart available on Jobs. Trends. Insight.

The following graph, sourced from WANTED Analytics 2.0, takes a closer look at the top five occupations in terms of job postings. Sales and Related Occupations is the only top five occupation to have improved since last month on a year-over-year basis. Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations are down 6.8%; Management Occupations are down 5.9%; Computer and Mathematical Occupations are down 4.3%; Business and Financial Operations Occupations are down 4.2%. There are usually seasonal declines in Hiring Demand in June compared to May, but year-over-year comparisons remove these seasonal effects.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

Looking at the data by geography, the top US markets have also shown progression since January. The top seven US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) have shown robust Hiring Demand through March/April/May/June.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

We can expect continuing losses in US Nonfarm Employment Payroll, but at a slower pace. As Hiring Demand positions itself to show upward trending, the overall labor market will stabilize, with the hope that employment will start to grow by the end of Q3 2009.

Weekly Advertiser Watch: AT & T; Oshkosh Corporation; MarineMax; Starwood Hotels & Resorts; Dollar General

Charles Thibault — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:22:51 +0000

In our weekly feature, we discuss Hiring Demand at the company level. WANTED's weekly Gazelles Report details advertisers whose online recruitment activity has shown significant upward trending in the past 28 days.

AT&T (NYSE: T) has appeared in our weekly Gazelles report for the past three weeks. Spikes in Hiring Demand for AT&T have mostly been concentrated in Sales occupations – it has more than doubled the number of new job ads placed on a weekly basis, moving from an average 2,700 job postings to 6,000 last week.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

Oshkosh Corporation (NYSE: OSK) manufactures heavy duty vehicle and vehicle parts, such as fire trucks, military purposed vehicles for the United States Department of Defense, or other heavy-duty haul or specialty transportation vehicles. Oshkosh Corporation was a top gainer on July 1, 2009. Hiring Demand at Oshkosh has been on an upward trend since December, and has tripled over the past two months.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

MarineMax (NYSE: HZO) was also a top gainer on July 1, 2009. MarineMax showed up on this week's Gazelles report, but it has also had impressive surges in Hiring Demand in February and March. Its stock price has finally caught up to these surges, moving from $1.19 on March 9th to a high of $6.05 on May 5th, to settle around $3.50 this week.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

Starwood Hotels & Resorts (NYSE:HOT), the leisure and hotel chain, has seen its stock price more than double since mid March. Its Hiring Demand is also trending back upwards, after a significant slowdown. In fact, Hiring Demand has been cut by a factor of five, and its stock price has fallen five-fold since May 2008. Both are trending back upwards, however.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

Finally, Dollar General Corporation, which is not publicly traded but is ranked #259 on the Fortune 1000 list, has shown constant progression since early 2008. This is consistent with Wal-Mart's recent success in these difficult economic times, as consumers move towards lower-end retailers.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0