Thomas Oliver:Encouraging signs still dim

By Thomas Oliver

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

We look for silver linings. We cling to words of encouragement.

We despair at one more layoff, one more cutback.

So it is with December’s unemployment rate, which remained flat only because more than half a million Americans were too discouraged to look.

Instead, we note that temporary jobs increased 47,000, and we allow ourselves to be encouraged by the conventional wisdom that temporary jobs increase three to six months ahead of growth in regular, permanent jobs.

And December was in fact the fifth straight month of increasing temporary jobs. That’s worth a toast.

As long as you keep your fingers crossed.

Because it is still hell out there.

Six-plus applicants are available for each job opening, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report.

Rosemarie Vermeersch, a Randstad area vice president in Atlanta, says her office has seen a sequential increase in temporary staffing each month since the third quarter.

The main jobs for temps have been production and warehouse workers, as companies replenish inventories but are still skeptical of hiring fulltimers.

Vermeersch says Atlanta companies are starting to hire temps for entry-level clerical help, customer service and bookkeeping positions.

Companies are still very cautious. They aren’t bringing these temps on board with the idea of making them permanent down the road.

Few are talking down the road. Not yet.

Randstad’s placements the first two quarters of this year will be mostly temporary work. But Vermeersch sees jobs moving into permanent positions in the second half.

Whenever companies hire, understand the deck is stacked in favor of the company more than it has ever been.

Here’s the killer. So hold on tight. And don’t shoot the messenger.

Companies still prefer to hire someone who is currently employed.

If they hire someone who is out of work, they will be very choosy, if they are smart and follow the advice of the professionals, like Randstad.

The best advice for those seeking jobs: Get to networking on Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. Jobster. Your local bar, church, health club, coffee shop.

Vermeersch encourages companies to become social networkers as well.

On Facebook or Twitter, they can position themselves as the “employer of choice.”

The silver lining here is dim at best. Yes, increases in temporary jobs have in past recessions foreshadowed growth in the permanent jobs market.

But this was the Great Recession. Intermingled with a financial panic.

This recovery is being advertised as a jobless one, which is stretching the definition of recovery. Some observers worry we could even slip back into recession, the feared “double-dip.”

Where we saw some improvement in the third and fourth quarters, “business are holding fire pending clarification of future government policy in the areas of health care, taxes, and climate change,” Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart told the Atlanta Rotary Club the other day.

In other words, while we cling to history’s implication in the growth of temporary jobs, we hide from history’s bigger lesson regarding the danger of producing such ambiguity that businesses remain on the sidelines.

Thomas Oliver writes the Sunday business column. He can be reached at toliver.writeright@gmail.com.