The financial media still sucks

Old data is bad data

The hiring market doesn’t have “mixed signals.” It has clueless takes from the financial media.

Case in point: the USA TODAY (or as I’ve always call it, the USA 2 DAYS AGO) published a story on 9/16/2024 titled “Wages, adjusted for inflation, are falling for new hires in sign of slowing job market”

Garbage here. But here’s the high (low?) point:

“If you need further proof that the nation’s formerly sizzling job market has gone cold, look to what had been perhaps the hottest part of the post-pandemic hiring frenzy: pay for newly hired workers.

After adjusting for inflation, average wages for new hires fell 1.5% over the 12 months ending in July – from $23.85 an hour to $23.51– the largest such decline in a decade, according to an analysis of Labor Department figures by the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

By contrast, inflation-adjusted earnings for typical workers staying in their jobs rose 2.3% during the same period, the Upjohn Institute study shows.”

Now, I’ll point out one thing I like: they treated new hire wages differently than ‘staying in the job’ wages. Which is a big thing that’s missed when companies try to gauge offers (new hires) based on most public salary data (mostly already employed workers.)

But can you spot the obvious flaw here?

Their data is from July 2023 to July 2024. Historic data with the most recent pull being 3 months out of date.

👉It’s already old – and therefore irrelevant – to gauge current market conditions.

This would be like deciding that you wanted to sell your stock based on a 3 month old price quote because the crash must always continue!

And the smug way the article starts “If you need further proof that the nation’s formerly sizzling job market has gone cold…” I mean yeah, it did go cold. But is it cold right now?

A few things:

1. The only data relevant to offers is the data, for the exact skill set, in the exact location, right now.
2. Hirewell’s business did in fact dip during the same time periods within that study. But: August was our biggest month in 2 years. And September is even larger.
3. Hirewell’s bread and butter is larger scale, volume hiring solutions. RPO as the kids call it. (It’s not the entirety of what we do, but everyone in every industry likes big deals more than small.) Think double and triple digit hiring scenarios.

That work tailed off in 2023. 5 of those new RPO engagements the entire year.

Since May 2024? 14 new engagements. And all the existing engagements extended in the last 2 months.

Look, we’re a medium sized business and not indicative of the entire market. But fear mongering based on outdated data when things have clearly turned a corner (at least in Office Dork™️ circles) is absolutely silly.

The world’s gloomy enough. We don’t need to make up more bullsh*t to get people even more depressed.

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.