Yoh News Release (03/05/12)

Recent reported employment gains should be great news for the American economy. But findings by the Yoh Index, which measures real-wage growth among skilled temporary workers, shows continued stagnation in salary rates among the most dynamic sector of the U.S. employment market. The Yoh Index barely budged for the fourth quarter of 2011, ending the year at 114.26, just a 1.15% increase over the same quarter for 2010.

Much of the disconnect between reports of employment gains and the real-world demand for skilled temporary workers has to do with the employment participation rate, which now stands at 63.7%, the lowest since the early 1980s. An artificially low employment participation rate decreases the unemployment rate by reducing the total number of people looking for work. A recent survey, commissioned by Yoh and conducted by Amplitude Research, found that systemic uncertainty over the economy and structural inefficiencies within the hiring process continue to suppress U.S. employment, and threaten to do so well into the future. In the survey of companies with revenues greater than $750 million and work forces over 1,500 employees, 61% of respondents reported that economic uncertainty represents the greatest obstacle to increased hiring this year.