The Job Market

The U.S. and global economies appear to be nearing the end of the current recession.  While trying to predict "the bottom" is near impossible, the recent comments by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke are encouraging.  However, a caveat to Chairman Bernanke's comments is his expectation that the economy will grow at a slower rate, keeping the unemployment rate historically high.

From an MBA's perspective, the encouraging news is that there are viable and attractive opportunities for the driven and talented.  Just to illustrate the point, the class of 2010 had an approximate +90% internship placement rate in the summer of 2009.  The key is information.

Effects on the job market

The last U.S. recession followed the bursting of the tech bubble in 2002. Placement rates and salaries fell across all the top MBA programs, as you can see from the Job Market Data page.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is responsible for categorizing economic activity into expansionary and contractionary phases.  NBER recently established the start of the current recession as December 2007. Looking at the post-World War II data here in the U.S., the average recession has lasted 10 months from the peak of economic activity to its trough. The longest recessions here were the ones in the early 1970s and the early 1980s; they both lasted 16 months.