The New Year is ostensibly off to a strong start as the job market shows signs of growth. Data collected by the Wall Street Journal and the website indeed.com indicate a demand in jobs in retail, accounting, health care, telecommunications and defense-related industries. Job postings have risen to 4.7 million since Dec. 1.
For professionals in these industries, this is good news, but this article sends contradictory messages. The data might foster hope among the jobless, but competition for these new jobs is fierce given that many seasoned workers have an advantage over recent college graduates or younger workers with less experience. Moreover, many of the jobs that pay well are in the health care and computer industries. Those who didn't qualify for these jobs in better times still aren't qualified, making workers in the bottom quadrant vulnerable to either unemployment or underemployment. If nothing else, the job statistics at the end of 2010 show that we have a long way to go. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment for black Americans was at 16 percent at the close of the year, compared with 8.9 percent for whites. We're going to need a lot more job postings from many more industries to close that gap.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal.