After the unemployment rate peaked at 10.1% in October 2009, it has slowly receded back to single digits. In February 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7% for the second consecutive month. In the past this may not have been considered positive, but at this point, no news as it relates to the unemployment rate, constitutes as good news.
To further support the notion that the job market could be on its way to improving, Beyond.com conducted a series of poll questions of thousands of business professionals to discover how their companies were responding to the poor economy. In Q2 2009, the poll revealed that more than 65 percent said their companies were currently cutting staff. After polling our members using the same question again in Q1 2010, we discovered a 7.3% decrease in the number of professionals who said their company was cutting staff.
While this by no means indicates that we are out of the woods yet, it is reassuring to see that the unemployment rate and the number of companies who are cutting staff is finally starting to level off. Now if only we could speed up the recovery process…
