Labor Markets Briefs

The threat of labor shortages is more acute in blue-collar and low-paid services occupations than in white-collar occupations.The main reason: The working age population is solidly and uninterruptedly growing for college educated, but shrinking for those without a college degree.

For the first time we are comparing job satisfaction globally. In the latest 2018 Q1 report of The Conference Board® Global Consumer Confidence Survey, a new global survey conducted in collaboration with Nielsen, workers in 64 countries were asked the same question: “To what extent are you satisfied with your current job?” Interestingly, all around the world workers have similar reasons to wake up every day and go to work.

For US firms, upgrading data protection compliance procedures will not just be a concern related to European operations. California has passed a measure, The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, which is partially modelled after GDPR. An examination of The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine® (HWOL) Data Series illustrates the mix of IT, legal, managerial, and marketing talent that companies will need to meet these new compliance challenges without sacrificing their digital ambitions.

The faster growth in wages for blue-collar workers is somewhat surprising, especially since throughout most recent history, white-collar wage growth was higher. We expect labor markets to continue to tighten in the coming years, which will only apply more wage and price pressures across the economy. There are already signs that faster wage growth is already spilling over to producer prices.

The rise of women relative to men in the labor force—along with the relative increase in female-dominated and generally lower-paying service sector employment—may be one significant reason why wage growth in this economic recovery has not been as fast as expected or what we are used to experiencing. But it’s also a reason why we can think optimistically that the labor market (and our economy’s true capacity) still hasn’t maxed out.

Labor market data very clearly suggest that jobs in warehousing, delivery, and e-commerce, are unlikely to fully replace those lost in brick and mortar retail.

Observing labor demand using online job ad postings for a specific company like Amazon is possible with Help Wanted OnLine® data. Most importantly, HWOL allows us to analyze monthly trends in labor demand both in real-time and historically down to the most granular occupational level for areas throughout the United States. Analyzing trends in online job ads with the granularity of Help Wanted OnLine® broadens our understanding of the overall U.S. labor market.