NYT Job Index Flags

According to the Times’ latest survey of New York-area job seekers and hiring managers, applicants say it’s taking longer to find a job and that their confidence in their ability to find employment in the next month is flagging.

Employed job seekers are similarly more nervous about their ability to find a similarly paying position while an increasing number of bosses report that they have more workers than work.

Job seekers reported lengthening job searches, 4.8 weeks in May compared to 3.8 weeks in April, and decreasing confidence in their abilities to find jobs in the next month – 41%, up from 29% in April.

Some 38% of those job seekers who are currently employed believed it would be difficult for them to find new jobs with similar salaries. That compares with 31% the month before.

An increasing number of hiring managers say that they have more employees than they need to handle their current workload – up 4% to 14% in May.

Current Conditions

The May Current Conditions measure of the Index, which looks at respondents’ perceptions of the current job market, dropped to 135.7 from 143.3 in April.

The Expectations measure of the Index, which considers respondents’ expectations concerning the future of the job market in six months, dropped to 101.6 from 108.0.

For the May research, 500 employers and 400 job seekers were chosen at random from the New York metropolitan area and interviewed by telephone in April and May.