We end this week with a collection of odds and ends and surveys from our overflowing inbox.
Our first item is especially worth reading for those of you with teenagers. (If your offspring is graduating from college this spring, skim this, but don’t miss the next item.)
Since you’re a recruiter, you already know that jobs for millennials, let alone seasonal work for 16-19 year-olds, is tough to come by. That’s not likely to change, says Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
“While teen employment is likely to see further improvement this summer, job gains will probably once again fall short of pre-recession figures,” said John A. Challenger, CEO of the global outplacement firm. Last year about 1.1 million teens got jobs. More will find jobs this summer, but not a lot more.
Among the reasons: the millions of older millennials who can’t find jobs and will be competing with the teens for the seasonal work, says Challenger.
College Hiring Plans Up
Here’s a little silver lining to that news, courtesy CareerBuilder. Says the company, 54 percent of the surveyed employers said they planned on hiring recent college grads this year. That’s a big — no — a huge improvement over past years. In 2011 only 46 percent said they had such plans; 44 percent in 2010 and 43 percent in 2009.
Employers were most likely to report they will pay between $30,000 and $40,000, the survey found, though 20 percent will offer less than $30,000, and 28 percent will be over $50k.
Freelance Opportunities Booming
This may not help your teen, though everyone knows at least one kid with the tech chops to reprogram your phone, but freelance jobs, including business process types, are booming.
Freelancer.com says its job postings in the first quarter skyrocketed up 31 percent. The site is where companies around the world post their project, contract, and freelance jobs. Dominating the top 50 job activities tagged by hiring managers and recruiters in their 170,000 postings: IT and virtual assistant tasks.
Why so, “sign of the times?” Says Freelancer CEO Matt Barrie, “We have seen a huge increase in outsourcing on the whole, with businesses rethinking their strategies.”
LinkedIn Wins (Again) in Poll
With only 92 responses to this survey, we would counsel against anyone building a strategy around the results, but still, we found it interesting that yet another set of recruiters says LinkedIn is even better than sliced bread. (OK, they didn’t actually say that.) They just ranked LinkedIn ahead of all other sources (not including, it seems, employee referrals) for the quality of candidates.
The poll by Job Board Doctor Jeff Dickey-Chasins rated social media as a recruiting channel more frequently used than any other, including employee referrals, which is the first time we’ve seen that result.
Manufacturers May Be Headed Back To U.S.
Finally, if you recruit for manufacturing, here’s a survey finding you are going to really like: “More than a third of U.S.-based manufacturing executives at companies with sales greater than $1 billion are planning to bring back production to the United States from China or are considering it.”
So says the Boston Consulting Group, which conducted the survey in late February. Of the decision-makers at the 106 companies participating, “37 percent said they plan to reshore manufacturing operations or are “actively considering” it. That response rate rose to 48 percent among executives at companies with $10 billion or more in revenues — a third of the sample.”