Job growth slows, but key vacancies hard to fill

Although employment growth was slower for manufacturing firms this month than last, employers are having more difficulty finding skilled applicants to fill key positions, according to new numbers from the Leading Indicator of National Employment (LINE™), released by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.

Despite recruiting difficulties for key jobs, LINE's new numbers indicate that salaries manufacturing firms paid new hires in July were essentially unchanged from a year ago, suggesting that the continuing difficulty employers face in filling critical positions has not led to widespread wage inflation.

The July 2005 LINE index (61.8) is well below the July 2004 level (64.3). The implication is that July 2005 was a less expansionary month than July 2004. Last month's employment index suggested that manufacturing job growth in June would be greater than in May. The June numbers that the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on July 8 confirmed that; the manufacturing sector added 76,000 jobs in June, compared with 46,000 in May.