Job Market Persists in Exhibiting Signs of Split Personality Disorder

For several months, the job market has exhibited various characteristics seemingly at odds with each other. Data from July continues this trend.

First, take the Monster Employment Index, a monthly gauge of U.S. online job demand based on a real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of corporate career Web sites and job boards, including Monster.com®, grew 21 percent year-over-year last month. It's the sixth consecutive month that this indicator has shown positive year-over-year growth. These findings jive with some other analyses of overall online job board activity over the past few months.

Concurrently, however, job cuts continue apace: Employers announced plans to shed 41,676 workers in July, according to global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., which released its latest report on planned job cuts on Aug. 4. The 6 percent increase in layoffs, compared to the 39,358 layoffs in June, also mirrors others' findings over many months' time.

What does it all mean? The answers are unclear, but any kind of recovery in job market surely remains in its nascence.