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July 14, 2008
Employers continued to cut jobs from their payroll in June for the sixth straight month, maintaining an unemployment rate of 5.5 percent, according to http://CNNMoney.com.
The dubious task of traversing the slow job market will prove difficult for the graduating class of 2008 – the first in decades to enter such a difficult market.
More than 60,000 jobs were lost last month, rising from a net loss of 49,000 jobs in May, the U.S. Labor Department reported.
This comes after the coffee franchise Starbucks announced plans to close the doors of 600 under producing locations across the U.S., leaving 7 percent of its workforce, or 12,000 people, without jobs.
Many airlines have also been hit hard, having to lay off flight attendants and ground crew.
"It's a competitive market because students are competing against a larger candidate pool," said Don Snyder, UNLV career counselor. "As more people get laid off, the pool of experienced candidates increases."
This is especially true in markets such as finance or civil engineering, subsectors that have slowed due to troubles in banking and the suspension of engineering projects.
In some cases, budget cuts are forcing employers to cut back labor in fields that were once very lucrative, Snyder said.
"At one time, civil engineering students could find work anywhere," he said. "That's not the case anymore."
Still, recruiting numbers over the last academic year have stayed strong as the number of employers participating in UNLV's job fair and CareerLink Website continued to rise, Snyder said.
According to UNLV CareerLink, 66 percent of graduates in 2007 reported finding a job related to their education only three months after graduating, and 74 percent of graduates found a job.
The numbers for 2008 will be in later this year, but a sharp increase in the number of student surveys returned may prove promising, Snyder said.
Snyder added that the fields still proving to be lucrative in today's market, are accounting, computer science and nursing.
Dr. Paulette Tandy, chair of UNLV's accounting department, said employers hire accounting students anywhere from six to seven months before they graduate.
"Many of our students graduate with a job already [lined up]," she said. "Federal government regulations that have to be met and maintained make it easy for accounting students to find jobs even in a slow market."
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, commonly called SOX, is one such regulation, she continued. Enacted after Enron's collapse and an increase in accounting fraud in 2001, SOX established new and enhanced standards for U.S. public accounting firms, management and company boards.
Overall, Snyder says the biggest asset to any new graduate looking for a job is a good attitude and excitement for their future.
"Every student needs to have a willingness to say they want to learn and admit they are entry level," he said.
The best tips for securing one's dream job in a slow economy, are to be proactive, seek face-to-face networking through student organizations and UNLV career fairs, secure informational interviews with priority employers and be ready to make sacrifices, Snyder said.
"Students must recalculate what they are expecting in a job and their wants and desires," Snyder said. "The biggest hindrance is a student's inability to relocate."
To learn more about local and national job postings, internships and to post a resume for employers to review, visit CareerLink at http://hire.unlv.edu.
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