MA is Leading the Nation in Job Growth

The Staffing View

On business, the workplace and employee relations

_December, 2010

Micro Tech’s Featured Jobs Openings for December

Branch Manager, Boston

$55,000 to $75,000

Looking for a candidate with 5-plus years of managing a bank or credit union that has a high volume of customers on a daily basis  Someone who has worked in a Boston bank would be ideal  Must be strong with regards to bank operations and sales oriented  http://wwwmtsgcom/

Conversion Marketing Manager, Woburn, MA

$70,000 to $80,000

Looking for mid to senior level candidates with experience in traditional and online marketing, specifically lead generation and nurturing and convergence Experience with financial industry a plus http://wwwmtsgcom

Systems Network Engineer, Fall River, MA

$48,000

Looking for a MCSE Certified Systems Engineer (contract to permanent) Travel (about 15 percent) to client sites will mostly be within 45 minutes of Fall River http://wwwmtsgcom

Oracle Database Administrator, Lawrence, MA

$98,000

Looking for candidates with experience in Oracle 11g and SQL Server 2008 http://wwwmtsgcom

 

New England’s Job Gains Outpace the Nation

For New England employers and job seekers – permanent or temporary – the recession of 2007-2008 was unique in that the employment decline was less than the job loss nationally in percentage terms The recovery after the recession started sooner and has been stronger than the US recovery Neither of those developments occurred during previous recessions

At a recent meeting in Boston of the New England Economic Partnership, the regional forecasting group that meets every six months, economists from the six New England states gazed into the future and concluded that employment growth will continue to outpace the nation for another nine to 12 months before slipping below the US average

Across the region job growth is expected to average about 13 percent per year during the forecast period through 2014, but those increases won’t occur equally in each state New Hampshire will lead the region while the Rhode Island economy will continue to be among the country’s laggards Overall, the NEEP economists expect total employment to return to its pre-recession peak during the third quarter of 2013

As a staffing firm that operates in four New England states – Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island – staying on top of the trends in the region’s economy helps us help our client companies and our professional staffers Here are a few of the NEEP items we found noteworthy

Massachusetts

Since the end of the state’s recession in August of 2009, Massachusetts’ economy has grown vigorously Gross state product, the total value of goods and services produced in Massachusetts, grew at an annual rate of 6 percent in the first quarter of 2010 and 47 percent in the second quarter Both are stronger than the US

The state’s population is expected to grow about 05 percent per year through 2014 That may not seem like much, but it’s significantly faster than in the last expansion and is probably due to the fact that the state’s economy outperformed the nation during the recession and in the early stage of the recovery The flow of people into the state from other states is at its highest level since the “Massachusetts Miracle” years of the 1980s

Look for professional and business services to be the fastest growing sector during the next several years, with average annual job growth of 31 percent Construction, leisure and hospitality, education and health services, and information are other sectors expected to grow faster than the states total employment growth rate of 16 percent per year

Maine

Employment is expected to begin growing in the fourth quarter of this year, continue at a slow pace in 2011 and then pick up in 2012 While New England will recover its pre-recession employment level in 2013, Maine likely won’t reach that point until the second quarter of 2014 Slow growth in health services and government employment – the state has suffered a drop of nearly 11 percent in general fund revenues – is acting as a drag Look for job opportunities in professional and business services, education and health; and leisure and hospitality

One bright spot on the employment horizon is the redevelopment plan for the Brunswick Naval Air Station Now officially renamed “Brunswick Landing,” an aviation firm has signed to become a major tenant and should be employing 300 to 400 people when fully operational in 2012

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is halfway back to regaining all of the jobs it lost in the downturn and, at the current growth rate, will have regained all of the lost jobs by the first quarter of 2012 The state’s recovery has been broad-based, including manufacturing, business services, education, construction, trade, health and leisure Only the financial services sector remained weak, losing 700 jobs from September 2009 to September 2010

Why the strong New Hampshire comeback? Because it’s a moderate cost state in a high cost region The state’s tax climate has been ranked number one in the nation by several watchdog groups

A green energy project is expected to boost construction employment The Northern Pass alternative energy project is expected to create 1,200 jobs during the three years it will take to build a converter station for an electric transmission line carrying 1,200 megawatts of Canadian hydropower electricity to New Hampshire

Rhode Island

The Ocean State suffered the most during the recession, with virtually no job growth during the past three years and one of the highest jobless rates in the nation A state budget deficit that’s projected to reach $500 million by fiscal 2014 will present problems to state officials trying to attract businesses and generate private sector jobs

Still, the NEEP forecast calls for slow but steady growth during the next several years

Leisure and hospitality services are expected to be the fastest growing sectors in the state, with average annual growth rates of about 31 percent to 2014  It’s expected about 5,000 new jobs will be added to the sector between the end of 2010 and the end of 2014, returning to pre-recession levels by the middle of 2011 Similarly, trade, transportation and utilities will likely add about 5,000 combined jobs over that same period, recovering about half of what was lost in the recession

High tech was one of the industries that held its ground during the recession, hovering at slightly more than 22,000 jobs since 2004 The outlook calls for high tech to be among the state’s fastest growing sectors with average growth rate of 21 percent per year through 2014, better than the New England average forecast of 16 percent

Make It in Massachusetts

In the 1970s, job growth in the Massachusetts economy was stagnant and job seekers often found themselves looking beyond the state’s borders The reason, critics claimed, was the high level of taxation in the state, earning it the derisive nickname “Taxachusetts” In the decades since several categories of taxes were reduced by state lawmakers, bringing the overall tax burden in line with the rest of the country and improving the state’s ability to attract new employers

But now a study of the state’s revenues and expenditures compared to other states claims that if Massachusetts taxed each tax base – the various assets, incomes, sales, etc – at the national average of other states it could plug its current state budget deficit of more than $2 billion

The New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center compared the per capita revenues and spending at each state to create an average tax for each tax base The study was of fiscal year 2002, published in 2006 and revived recently by Northeastern University economist Alan Clayton-Matthews He had dusted off the old study after concluding that the state has a much larger structural deficit of as much as $4 billion, dating back to before the “dotcom” recession of 2001

According to the 2006 report, Massachusetts had the second highest revenue capacity in the nation at $5,994, meaning the per capita level of fees and revenues that would result from taxing each tax base at the national average Meanwhile the state’s “revenue effort” was only 86 percent of capacity, making it the third lowest in the country behind South Dakota, Tennessee and New Hampshire

Clayton-Matthews did not break out Massachusetts’ current ranking compared to other states in each tax category But using the study he asked how much more could Massachusetts raise in revenues if it were to tax at the average tax and fee rate of the 50 states His answer: $5 billion Well above even his structural budget deficit

Office Party Etiquette

The holiday office party was once a raucous occasion that put careers and reputations in peril The lamp-shade-as-drunken-late-night-party-hat has gone out of style Still, even with muted post-recession celebrations, some people are bound to go over the top and create a legend Make the most of the time with your coworkers and don’t let that be you

Plan ahead If you know your boss will be attending, give some thought to what you’ll talk about with him or her Show more of yourself than your office skills Engage in an intelligent conversation Show a sense of humor Be inquisitive You may end up getting more face time with senior management or important clients

Make a new connection Find someone whom you work with but barely know They’ll have more time at a party to talk about family and interests than they would during the work day Jump in when you see a friend speaking with someone you don’t know well

           

Circulate It’s a party, not an interview Make a mental note of people in attendance with whom you’d definitely like to chat After you’ve spent some meaningful time with one, move on to the other If a “monopolizer” latches on to you, deftly invite another person in to your conversation, then slip out

Watch the eggnog Telling off the boss Groping a colleague Slurred Karaoke Dumping the hors d’oeuvres Chasing people with mistletoe Just a few of the career-ending moves people have made while drunk at office parties