[8]We are happy to announce that the job market is officially fixed.
It was almost exactly a year ago [9]when we reported that Delta Airlines received 22,000 applications for 300 flight attendant jobs in the first week after posting the positions outside the company. The applications arrived at a rate of two per minute. Said otherwise, the precious few lucky hires had overcome an acceptance ratio of 1.3%. Putting this into perspective, the acceptance ratio at Harvard, the lowest of any university, is 5.9%.
Fast forward to today and once can clearly see an improvement: over the weekend, Southwest Airlines Co. which last hired flight attendants from outside the company in 2011, received applications at a rate of only 80 a minute, getting a paltry 10,000 resumes for 750 openings.
"It was the first time we did that in a while, and of course anytime we do it, it’s like opening up the floodgates,” Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly told employees in a weekly recorded message. “We knew it would be the same this time." So "this time is different" only works for the S&P. But more importantly, the Southwest acceptance ratio was a safety-school comparable 7.5%, or 13.333 applicants for every vacant spot. Comparing this to the 73.333 applicants that Delta got a year ago and one can see just how much "stronger" the US job market, not to mention the seasonally adjusted, inventory boost-driven economy has become.
Finally, consider that 2 years ago the Atlanta-based carrier received 100,000 applications for 1,000 jobs when it last hired flight attendants in October 2010, or 100 applicants for every spot.
When one looks at this trend, what can one say but unmistakeable, unambiguous jobs recovery.
Actually, on second read, the way Bloomberg phrases it [10]may leave on with a doubt or two about the bolded statement:
The deluge of applications in two hours and five minutes at Dallas-based Southwest also underscores the demand for work even as U.S. economic growth gathers pace.... New hires at Southwest will earn about $24.39 an hour and work a minimum of 66 hours a month, Dan Landson, a spokesman for the Dallas-based company, said in a telephone interview. Hiring for the positions will be completed in the next year, he said.
So, $24.69 x 66 = $1,610 per month, or $19320 per year... pretax. It was unclear as of this writing who gets to foot the Obamacare bill since the hours worked is below the full-time worker minimum.
Oh well, job recovery or non-job, non-recovery, all that matters is that the $160 billion in joint liquidity injection between the Fed and BOJ (and another $200 billion or so from China) has managed to push global equity markets to daily fresh record highs. In retrospect, why does anyone need to work. Just BTFATH.