Not all unemployed are created equal. There are those who recently graduated from school and haven’t held a job yet. There are those who have made horrible mistakes and have been terminated. There are those who have been working hard every day but had to be let go when their company fell on hard times. There are those who have done nothing wrong at all, but find that their positions just aren’t as essential today as they were five years ago.
 
While unemployment rates remain high, that last category seems to be one whose importance is increasing, especially with hiring beginning to pick up as nearly 300,000 jobs were added in April. As we saw in both the 2000 recession and the most recent one, employers took advantage of the slowdown in business to eliminate obsolete positions, which were unnecessary even before the downturn. The increasing pace of technological advancement is enabling many positions to be replaced by automation that saves companies money.
 
“When a 9.9 percent unemployment rate is being reported, that just doesn’t reflect what we are seeing both in the volume of professional candidates and in the talent demand from companies,” says Tony McKinnon, president of MRINetwork.
“Over the last six months, companies have increased both their hiring and their speed of hiring, with top candidates remaining on the market for an even shorter period of time.”
 
In today’s job market, there is a striking dichotomy between the short-term unemployed–those with potentially a better chance of landing a job sooner than later–and what are now considered to be the chronically unemployed, those without a job for more than 27 weeks. In fact, the percentage of workers unemployed for that period of time grew to 46 percent in April, a level never before seen since records started being kept.
 
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Beating expectations averaging a gain of 190,000 jobs, the Labor Department this morning estimated that 290,000 jobs were added in the United States during the month of April. The unemployment rate in the month rose from 9.7 to 9.9 percent, topping estimates. However, the growth is attributable to a large increase in labor market participation. While the U.S. noninstitutional population rose by only 170,000 in April, labor market participation increased by 805,000 edging to within only 3,000 of its size in April 2009.
 
Since February, there has been a rise in job leavers from 866,000 to 938,000 people. As more workers voluntarily leave their jobs, this indicates both an increase in job market liquidity and growing candidate confidence in the market.
 
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I look forward to seeing “old and new faces” on April 9th, 2010.  For information to the show and my site please click here.