• Tweet

Summer Swoon? Employment Activity Declines in July

By CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index

After a strong performance the month before, hiring experienced a summer swoon in July, as employment activity dropped by more than 1% across the U.S. Although this is the second year in a row that hiring has slowed in July, overall the CareerCast.com/JobSerf Emloyment Index is still up over 4% from the same period in 2011 – just the third time in 2012 that managerial hiring activity has been better than last year.

How do we determine these employment activity numbers?

The CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index calculates the number of available managerial job openings each month by surveying wide range of local and national job boards across the U.S, with all results hand-counted and checked for duplication by a team of researchers. What does an overall Index score of 103.7 for June 2012 mean? The Index measures employment activity against a base score of 100, which represents the volume of job openings during the same period in 2007. A score higher than 100 means that there are more available jobs than in 2007, while one below 100 means that job seekers now have fewer opportunities available.

• USA Hiring Index Table, Jan 2008 - July 2012:

Employment activity across the U.S. has been relatively stagnant in recent months, remaining within a 7-point window since April. But despite this summer swoon, hiring in some U.S. regions continues to outpace the rest of the nation by a considerable margin.

Continue to the June 2012 Regional Hiring Report