The most recent jobs report was out last Friday and this article – “US Jobs Losses in May Slow, Fueling Recovery Hopes” gives all the basic details.  Apparently, the US economy only lost 345,000 jobs in May, which is better than expected.  Unfortunately, the unemployment rate jumped to 9.4%, the highest since 1083, but even then it appears this is good news as it means that people who had given up hope of finding a job have changed their minds; now they are looking for jobs.  I don’t know if we should take this as confidence (as the article suggests) or more of a recognition that people have got to eat and pay the rent.

Unfortunately, the article does not discuss what has happened to manufacturing related jobs in May, although if the news about Chrysler and General Motors are an indication of manufacturing health, I’m assuming it was a pretty grim month for the manufacturing sector.  We’ve been continuing to hear about layoffs of reliability engineers and predictive maintenance professionals, but don’t have enough quantifiable data to share with you.  If you know about plant closings or layoffs where reliability engineers and predictive maintenance professionals have lost jobs, please let us know about them.

Lastly, beta testing is going well, but we can always use more help as the more insight we get, the better we will be able to service you in your future pursuit of job and career opportunities.  If you are interested in helping with our testing, please let us know – we would appreciate the help.