Look Who's Hiring Now: Inquire Within
by Christopher Steiner (Forbes)

Sunday, November 1, 2009
It's really bad out there. But, sensing opportunity, companies across America are starting to hire again.
Sub-Zero Refrigerators, the stainless steel hulks that can run $15,000, became emblems of middle-class overreach during the housing boom as people drained the equity out of their homes to pay for lavish renovations. It was hardly a shock that in the wake of the real estate bust Sub-Zero cut upward of 300 employees from the 1,350 at its 80,000-square-foot factory in Madison, Wis. The plant, which also makes high-end Wolf ovens and ranges, watched its floor go from a frenzied, two-shift operation to a ho-hum 40-hour-a-week schedule.
Now for the turnaround. This month Madison's second shift is coming back as the company adds 165 jobs to the plant, anticipating a 15% sales bump next year. There's more: Sub-Zero just finished off a new factory in Kentucky, where it will need 100 workers to build dishwashers, a new appliance line. "I think a lot of remodelers stepped to the sideline last fall and are starting to come back," says Steven Dunlap, vice president of sales. "That's the main reason we're hiring now."
Slowly signs of life are starting to sprout in the bleakest job market in a generation. No question, it's still awful out there and will probably get worse. At 9.8%, unemployment is up from 4.5% in May 2007. Typically in a recession, the jobless rate ticks up 0.5% for each 1% drop in GDP; this time it has lurched ahead 0.75%. No one knows what--or how long--it will take to settle back to a "normal" unemployment rate of 6%. Heidi Shierholz, labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute, expects the job market could shrink by 10 million (from peak employment of 138 million in December 2007) before it's over. "The level of growth required for a full jobs recovery is extraordinary," she says.
Hiring usually picks up long after a recovery is under way (see chart below). That trend is getting worse. Unemployment lagged the larger economy by five months in the 1982 recession, by a year after the 1991 slide, and by two and a half years following the tech slump in 2001.
For more: http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/art...