Manufacturing Job Growth Slowed in July, Key Vacan
Alexandria, VA, July 26--Although employment growth was slower for manufacturing firms this month than last, employers are have more difficulty finding skilled applicants to fill key positions, according to new numbers from the Leading Indicator of National Employment, released today by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.
Despite recruiting difficulties for key jobs, LINE's new numbers indicate that salaries manufacturing firms paid new hires in July were essentially unchanged from a year ago, suggesting that the continuing difficulty employers face in filling critical positions has not led to widespread wage inflation.
LINE reports on five employment measures, two of which are released before other similar measures and three of which are new and unique. An index value above 50 indicates employment is growing, while an index below 50 shows that employment is contracting.
The July 2005 index is well below the July 2004 level. The implication is that July 2005 was a less expansionary month than July 2004. Last month's employment index suggested that manufacturing job growth in June would be greater than in May. The June numbers that the BLS released on July 8th confirmed that, the manufacturing sector added 76,000 jobs in June, compared with 46,000 in May.
A collaboration between the Society for Human Resource Management and the Rutgers University, LINE identifies early economic trends and changes in the national job market by surveying human resource (HR) professionals at manufacturing firms. LINE's monthly numbers are released on the last Tuesday of the month in question. To date, LINE has correlated closely with Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) jobs numbers.
