How to characterize the overall U.S. employment picture in the first quarter of 2011?
It all depends on how you look at it. Here’s what we mean. During March—which is when we sent out invi- tations to respond to Convene’s annual salary survey—ADP reported that more than 200,000 private-sector jobs were added in the United States, the third consecutive month of this level of job growth. At the same time, Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed a sharp decline in March U.S. layoffs compared with 2010. Both of those find- ings were consistent with Gallup’s Job Creation Index, which showed slightly more actualized jobs and compar- atively low layoffs during the first quarter of 2011.
UHowever,U contrary to the federal government’s jobs reports during the same period, Gallup’s
underemployment measures—which combine part-time workers wanting full-time work with those who are unemployed—suggested that those recent job increases had not been sufficient to significantly improve the jobs situation in early 2011.
As for the jobs situation in the meetings industry, while our survey isn’t specific
to job loss or gain, things seemed a bit better in March than six months earlier.We know that because we had asked Convene readers to answer the same salary-survey questions back in October 2010. At that time, 15 percent of respondents said that they were
“very unsatisfied” with their salaries, while 11 percent reported that they were “very satisfied.” Were they happier in March? Just a tad: Fifteen percent responded that they were very satisfied with their salaries, and only 12 percent were very unsatisfied.
It’s an even brighter picture for planners when you compare the results of last year’s
salary survey, published in our June 2010 issue, in which fewer than half of respondents reported receiving a pay increase during 2009. In 2010, 58 percent—and in 2011, 59 percent — of respondents saw their salaries go up.
These may be small signs of a rebound, but some meeting professionals aren’t taking anything for granted. In answer to the question “What do you like most about your job?,” one planner responded: