Posted on: Sunday, April 15, 2001

Laid-off find new jobs fast

Gannett News Service

The unprecedented speed with which first-quarter job seekers found new positions — 37 percent faster than a year ago — is a strong indication that the slumping economy will be back on track by fall, according to employment specialist Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Despite record job cuts and a virtually zero-growth economy, it took discharged managers and executives just 2.27 months to find new jobs in the first quarter, chief executive officer John Challenger said.

In the first quarter last year, it took 3.58 months to find new employment. The January-March 2001 period had the shortest median job-search time recorded in the 15-year history of tracking.

Job cuts began escalating last December. Through March, 540,519 cuts were tabulated by Challenger, more than the annual figure recorded in seven years of the past decade.

"It is certainly remarkable that amid extraordinary job cutting, newly discharged managers and executives are finding jobs practically before the ink dries on their new resumes," he said. "It is yet another example of the new economy's ability to simultaneously create and destroy jobs.

"Knowing that the new economy has forced companies to become more proactive, the drop in job-search times may actually be an indication of what lies ahead.

"A company cannot afford to wait until the economy picks up before hiring new people. By waiting, there is the risk that available workers will already have been swept up by more forward-thinking firms."