June Tip Sheet 2020

When his obituary appeared prematurely, a still very much alive Mark Twain  quipped that the reports of his “death are greatly exaggerated”.* In May, the U.S. released numbers indicating that over 33 million jobs had been lost in the prior three months. Many experts were forecasting continuing job losses through the third quarter with recovery delayed until 2021. But just five days ago, the U.S. recorded the largest single month’s job growth in its history. May did not lose the 7 to 8 million more jobs as predicted but recorded a net gain of 2.5 million jobs. (The experts were only off by 10 million jobs that month). U.S. unemployment actually declined.
In sum, our nation appears to have survived the sharpest and shortest recession in U.S. history. Clearly, we are not out of the woods, but we should be optimistic. AcuMax knew this was happening. How might you ask? Because we saw an increase in the number of surveys for May over the prior months. That is a positive sign that our clients which represent a broad swath of companies are recalling workers and filling open positions. We know that some industries were hit harder than others and some are being slow walked back to business as usual, but things are looking much better than they were only a month ago. So, get busy and let’s get back to work!
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* The exact quote by Twain remains the subject of debate with this being the most popular version.