A whopping 74% of job seekers vying for six-figure jobs are reportedly noticing a serious slowdown in interview opportunities.
Despite recession worries, however, 53% still view high-end jobs in their cities as either “stable” or “somewhat stable,” according to a new survey.
And even if economists are throwing around the “r” word with disdain, these job-seeking executives are saying otherwise. The survey shows that 65% still remain confident that they will be gainfully employed at a high-paying job within six months.
According to TheLadders.com’s (profile; site) quarterly job survey of executives in 20 major cities, the most favorable job markets are in San Francisco, San Diego, Washington, DC, Boston, and New York. The ratio of job seekers to job postings is 3:1 in both San Francisco and San Diego, and 4:1 in DC, Boston, and New York, the survey says.
Of course, these big-city hubs have scores of technology and pharmaceutical opportunities. Indeed, the survey points out that most of the big companies doing high-end hiring are by the likes of Abbott Laboratories, Cisco, Expedia, Genzyme, and Sun Microsystems, looking to fill predominantly tech and pharmaceutical jobs.
Meanwhile, in places seriously weakened by the mortgage meltdown, automotive slowdown, and construction shutdown, those ratios are rapidly deteriorating.
For example, the number of active job seekers to number of high-paying jobs in Detroit was 22:1 in the survey. In Tampa, the ratio is 11:1.
These numbers are much worse than during the same period in 2007, when Q1 data for Tampa showed the number of active job seekers to number of high-paying jobs at 8:1, and depressingly, only 6:1 in 2006. In Detroit, the numbers were 16:1 in 2007 and a mere, by comparison, 13:1 in 2006.