US Unemployment Trends

Several organizations are studying the unemployment trends, to really arrive at how the patterns are impacting different functions.  There is no direct data to match function level unemployment data, and as a result, we have to build a model.  We have developed some initial models to support, and we can work with you on any specific needs.  The core data comes from BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics).  As you know, BLS is organized by occupation, and many of the job families, such as Software Engineer is categorized in SOC code 15-0000 (Computer and Mathematical Occupations).  To complicate further, data at the MSA level and Occupation level is not available directly.  Our modeling efforts (which is still work in progress and may need another two weeks to complete) show that Computer and Mathematics Occupations are experiencing only half of the “unemployment” effect of other occupations.  As you know, the April unemployment rate is very high in the US – a rate of 14.7%.  Translating this further by Job family and City shows a relatively more robust market for Software engineers like job families. (Still lot higher than months before).  I do think this is a short term effect especially for knowledge jobs)

Here are a few examples of how we are triangulating by bringing in multiple parameters to triangulate.  We can model any job family this way and refine the statistic.  We may also have a confidence interval to capture variability in prediction.

Many companies are showing an enormous passion for training existing resources.  We have discussed learning academies in the past.  But we had targeted discussions with several companies, and few trends emerged

•  70% of the companies described they are not backing out or reducing L&D efforts (this includes companies that have announced hiring freeze)
• While there may be hiring freeze in some organizations, almost all the organizations we talked to are super passionate about training
• We discussed several topics about Project Managers not having enough technical competencies. How can we accelerate this change?  Should we put them through a quick technology boot camp?
• Another opportunity we have is to transform Program Manager into Agile Managers or Agile Coach
• Can Call Center agents be transformed into Inside Sales Representative?
• How to make Content writers into Digital Marketing Analyst?

Tagging the JDs across a set of criteria to model work from home index is emerging as a critical priority. Mostly the factors used in our models are People, Systems, and Compliance.  This will help you tag the JDs.  We are still not fully automated but are working on some of the job roles.  An example tag across these components across a few job families is given in this table. The goal is to track your JDs and produce a table like this based on text mining.

1 = least optimal for work from home – 10 is the most optimal.  (A project manager may have more collaboration needs than a business analyst for example and as a result, scored lower on the people side from Suitability to work from home)

• Creates data reports and tracks digital analytics to measure the effectiveness of the team’s digital initiatives and interpret results
• Create the narrative of the features/processes being developed and articulate, present pain points and future benefits
  Grow an engaged audience while cultivating relationships with other internal influencers
  Proactively escalate issues, observations, opportunities, and insights to the leaders with a problem-solving attitude

• Recruit among teams for cross-team leverage
• Clean up skills inventory and maintain an updated set of profiles and resumes (Draup can help here)
• Mock interviews and 1:1s to sharpen the skills (with internal managers for example)
• Great foundation to accelerate career conversations

Overall, we are quite excited about the role HR can play under the emerging circumstances.  If we plan the initiatives correctly, we can accelerate transformation and adaptation and make our enterprises that we genuinely care for, a great place to work.