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In Focus: Jobseekers
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December 15, 2000: 1:13 p.m. ET
Jim Treacy, COO, TMP Worldwide, discusses U.S. job market
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - In today's tight labor market, sales and marketing professionals remain in top demand. Same goes for healthcare workers and accountants. But according to Jim Treacy, the chief operating officer of TMP Worldwide, the hottest sector by far is information technology.
He should know. TMP Worldwide operates the popular job-hunting Web site, Monster.com.
"IT is extremely tight," said Treacy, a guest on Friday's In Focus program. "One of 12 positions are open and new IT positions are constantly opening up."
In Focus airs daily on CNNfn's network at 12:10 p.m. The following includes comments made both during the show and in the pre-show interview.
CNNfn: What are the current conditions in the employment and recruiting marketplace?
Treacy: The market continues to be extremely tight. There are certain segments where there are layoffs occurring, like some of the big telecom companies, or merger-related layoffs from big banks joining forces, and auto sales are down, so auto makers are laying off employees because of that.
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The two hottest sectors are IT and sales and marketing.
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Jim Treacy, COO, TMP Worldwide |
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But there are also tremendously hot sectors -- everybody's looking for sales and marketing people, there's a huge shortage of healthcare workers and accountants are in short supply.
The hottest sector is information technology -- one in 12 IT jobs are open all over the world. If you're an IT professional you're in demand -- anything from network engineering to infrastructure to programming -- everybody from Walmart to Cisco (CSCO: Research, Estimates) to TMP -- we're all hiring. The two hottest sectors are IT, and sales and marketing.
CNNfn: What could 2001 bring for employers and employees?
Treacy: There's no question about it -- if you look at the demographics, employees are in demand. The only limitation is the one they set. More people are turning 45 than 25 in the western white-collar world, and that will continue for five to seven years. Then if you look at the 35-45 age group, that block will decrease a percent a year for next 15 years, so there's a huge middle management void coming.
We all know that technology changes by the minute and the Internet is becoming a bigger part of daily life. If universities are graduating less people to fill the IT void, that void will get bigger. From an employee's standpoint, if you're willing to look at opportunities, the world is your oyster. From an employer's standpoint, they have look at the demographics.
To grow a company you need good people, and demographically they're in short supply. The economy is slowing but it's still growing, so new positions keep opening up. There are more open positions being created and companies have to compete for those employees to grow. Employers that aggressively market to their own employees and then to potential ones they could bring in will win.
CNNfn: What is the impact -- or lack thereof -- of the dot.com fallout?
Treacy: There are almost 20,000 open dot.com jobs in monster.com, so there's still opportunities out there. The 800 largest dot.coms employ a little over 900,000 people. Walmart by itself employs 1.1 million people. The amount of employees in dot.coms are a drop in the bucket, but they're desirable, bright, young kids with an entrepreneurial spirit and companies compete hard for them.
CNNfn: Which industries are still tight?
Treacy: Anything to do with sales and marketing -- it doesn't matter what industry. Pharmaceuticals are growing, healthcare is tight – there are not enough doctors and nurses. IT is extremely tight -- one of 12 positions are open and new IT positions are constantly opening up. Accounting is tight.
CNNfn: What could a softening economy mean for job seekers and employers?
Treacy: A slowing economy can still be growing so I don't think it will make much difference. It will take some pressure off the employer from the rapid pace we've been on. Whether growth is slowing or not, companies have to compete to get the good employees. Employers should be aggressively going after the good people, and the ones that do that well will win. Employees that utilize the Internet and are bold and confident will do great.
CNNfn: In your opinion, will the economic slowdown pick up steam or lose steam?
Treacy: We're approaching a soft landing in my opinion. Interest rates will come down in the new year.
CNNfn: How has the job market adjusted itself to a slowing economy?
Treacy: If the economy is growing, jobs will be growing. There's not as many opportunities in dot.coms now as there were last year. There's a lot less college graduates becoming instant millionaires. There will be redundancies because of the mergers and you'll see layoffs, but companies will always need more sales and marketing and IT people to grow.
Employees have to proactively manage their careers. America has restructured its businesses and there is no more lifetime employment. There's a huge demographic demand for talent.
CNNfn: How will the economic slowdown affect your company?
Treacy: I think that we're very comfortable with our numbers. In several divisions the slowdown has had no effect. At this time last year there were 2.5 million unique resumes in our database -- right now there's 7 million. People recognize monster.com works and we can help them. Traditional business will continue to grow. It might not be as robust a pace as before. It's very different than earlier times.
We won't go into a recession like the early 90s -- this time the demographics are in favor of employees, and back then we didn't have the Internet, like we do now. It's an employee's market and it will continue to be that for some time.
In Focus: PC market - Dec. 13, 2000
In Focus: Brokerages - Dec. 8, 2000
-- reported by Carmina Perez 
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