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Are We Near the Bottom?

Apr 7 2009

A Moody's senior economist recently voiced hope that the financial job market is close to hitting bottom. "The number of job losses is going to get smaller going forward," Marisa DiNatale, a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com, told InvestmentNews.

Moody's goes so far as to predict the financial sector (which includes not just securities and investments, but also insurance, real estate, credit cards and other retail banking activities) will add jobs on balance during next year's first quarter – although adding the usual caveat that when the jobs recovery does come, its pace will be tepid.

As a financial professional, you spend your days down in those trenches that macroeconomists like DiNatale are trying to survey from cruising altitude. What are you seeing right now? In your neck of the woods, are offices still emptying out? Or, are there signs that the need for workers in your company, business unit, or functional specialty is stabilizing… or even that employers might actually be getting ready to hire again?

Comments (6)

"By this time next year we will have had 4 straight quarters of positive economic growth and we should see positive gains in jobs."

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Comments (6)

  • I think it is about to stabalize. There is no way you can keep eliminating 700,000 jobs every month. When the Dow Jones got to 6400 the first thing that I said was "That number is ridiculous", it can't be that bad and sure enough in a month's time the stock market recovered and eventually broke 8000 sooner that expected. The 1st quarter of 2009 the economy will contract for the second straight quarter but that will be it. The next quarter will show that the banks gained a profit in the first quarter and the stock market will go up again and we should see a small positive growth in GDP and the job losses will probably be around 50,000 - 100,000 nationwide each month for the entire year. By this time next year we will have had 4 straight quarters of positive economic growth and we should see positive gains in jobs.

    johnbothe 09 Apr 2009

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  • There will be no stabilisation. The economy has fallen into a bottomless pit and decades of depression will follow, probably leading to large scale wars and the decline of the western civilisation. In just a few decades the earth will be a barren wasteland, with the few survivors living in what can only be described as a close resemblance of hell.

    Well, at least somebody tried to convince me to believe that. My argument that compared to the other crises humanity had to cope with the current situation looks rather relaxed did not resonate with him.

    Gordon Gekko 15 Apr 2009

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  • "Gordon,"

    Your story reminds me of a similar conversation about 5 years ago, about a rather less important subject: the occupant of the White House.

    My own brother - who owned a prosperous business - told me he planned to move to either Panama or Costa Rica, just to get away from George W. Bush. My brother's business had nothing to do with politics or government contracting, nor was he involved in national politics in his personal life. So he must have been thinking the U.S. as we know it wouldn't survive the Bush presidency.

    I told him I'd seen the U.S. survive :

    1. A president who committed treason by seeking to overthrow our form of government, was caught and expelled from office,
    2. One Congress that impeached a president for purely partisan reasons,
    3. Another Congress (led by Joe McCarthy) whose purges came close to turning the country into a clone of the USSR...

    And that's just within my lifetime. Before I was born, the U.S. survived a civil war, two world wars, and a global depression with 25% unemployment.

    If I mentioned that conversation to my brother today, he'd probably feel pretty embarrassed.

    -Jon Jacobs, eFinancialCareers News staff

    Jon Jacobs 15 Apr 2009

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  • I am not a big fan of Nouris Rubini. However I found this guy has some guts to say something which the government doesn't even want regular people to know. Are we in the bottom?

    My assessment is not yet. Well it's debatable. But here is my couple of cents:

    1. Banks still have tons of toxic loans on the balance sheet. This problem is not going to go away in any short period. Lift M2M will not solve the problem, but only prolong the problem.

    2. Housing price is not yet bottomed. To borrow P/E theory, let's divide average house price by average rent per year. The current ratio is at 15 to 16 range which is bit high. I am not saying 15 is unreasonable, but this is in recession/depression. Unless the goverment willing to let market adjust for itself, any rescue or bailout will only prolong the problem. Our goverment actually is doing a very silly practice. Print and spit out money is a bad solution. A benchmark index to test the housing price is to use pre-2001 price and make 3% inflation adjustment. That's the reasonable price American people can afford.

    3. There is no question about come back. I am sure we will be out of recession in 5 years.

    -Bin Fang, Ph.D

    harvardpipi 21 Apr 2009

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  • I recently have been a victim of recessions since 1979 and I am going through it again. Having to look for a job this time seems to be a little different. Based on my networking and my research as an HR professional, there are definitely jobs in my field out there. It is not a barren landscape by any means. From where I sit, I know the media, financial services, retail and IT fields seem to have been hit very hard. There is no easy way for any of us who have lost a job , but continued patience and hard work.  It's just a matter of matching skill sets to a company's needs or be willing to transfer your skills to another job classification.  Being an eternal optimist and having been through this process 5 times (all based on downsizing rightsizing etc) you need to be thick skinned. Yet,those coming into my outplacement area seem to have moderated ever so slightly. We are definitely not through the hard times yet, but we will get through it. We will probably start to come out a little in 1st qrtr of 2010. As I have seen in many years, we came out of it before; we will do it again and be stronger for it. Stay determined, and keep your skills sharp for the next job opportunity.

    mgrillo1102 23 Apr 2009

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  • I think we have seen the worse given the uptick in the NYSE since March 7th.  Equities are usually 6 months ahead of overall market conditions.

    Jay C. Bohringer

    Jerome C Bohringer 25 Apr 2009

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