Confidence in the Current Job Market Grows

NEW YORK, Jan. 12, 2004 – The New York Times Job Market Confidence Index was virtually unchanged in December, at 95.0 from 95.5 in November. The Confidence Index, which measures the perceptions of employers and job seekers about the job market in the greater New York metropolitan area, is a combination of the Current Conditions and Future Expectations Indices and the February 2002 baseline measure.

The Current Conditions measure of the Index, which looks at respondents' perceptions of the current state of the job market, rose to 97.6 in December from 92.6 in November. The Expectations measure of the Index, which considers respondents' expectations concerning the condition of the job market in six months, dropped to 94.5 in December from 98.2 in November. The baseline for the Index is February 2002, with a value of 100.0.

"Confidence in the current market is growing," said Carl Haacke, economist for The New York Times Job Market Confidence Index. "However, expectations about future hiring declined somewhat, perhaps the result of growing productivity and the lack of appropriate talent available in the job market."

Other key findings for December 2003 include:

• The percentage of employers who say that the number of available jobs are very few dropped to 36.4 in December, from 41.1 percent in November. This represents the largest one-month decline since the baseline month of February 2002. Conversely, job seekers expressed a somewhat negative perception, with 51.5 percent saying there are currently very few jobs available in December, up from 47 percent cited in November.
• Employers expect to pay their existing employees more, with 41.4 percent in December saying the total amount of salaries and bonuses paid out by their organization will increase over the next six months, up from 36.9 percent who said so in November.
• Uncertainty remains about the future. The most important reason why employers will not hire next quarter remains low sales volume, with 35.9 percent saying it will be an extremely or very important reason they will not hire.
• Two other reasons affecting hiring have gained in importance since November. The percentage of employers who say that insufficient qualified talent will be an extremely or very important reason they will not hire during the next three months rose to 34.5 percent in December, up from 24.5 percent in November. At the same time, 33.4 percent of employers say that growing productivity of existing staff is an extremely or very important reason they will not hire during the next three months, up from 26.7 percent in November.

For the December results, 501 hiring managers and 310 job seekers were interviewed. Interviews were independently conducted for The New York Times by Beta Research Corporation by means of random telephone interviews with job seekers and hiring managers in the greater New York metropolitan area. The survey results for each month include responses obtained over the previous two-month period.

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