MINNEAPOLIS — Anyone who remembers 2008, remembers it was bad. Unemployment in the U.S. peaked at 10% during the Great Recession, and tens of thousands of businesses closed.
You were lucky to have a job, let alone start looking for a new one by choice.
So with the word "recession" in the headlines again, is now a good time to look for something new?
"It's hard to have a definitive answer on that now. We are still seeing companies hiring though, particularly in this first quarter," said Mick Doherty, Executive Vice President at Dahl Consulting, which consults with clients around the labor market, most of them in Minnesota.
Doherty says the current situation is much different right now than it was in 2008, mainly because companies are still hiring.
Keep in mind where we're coming from the "Great Resignation" following the pandemic, with droves of people willingly leaving the labor force. Doherty says companies are still trying to fill those open spots.
"It just created a huge gap. It left a lot of employers looking for talent and so they're still trying to play that catch-up," he said.
Doherty says that's the same reason that right now he's seeing more demand for full-time positions. Back in 2008, he says the companies he saw hiring relied more on temporary, contract jobs because of their uncertainty about the economy.
Here in Minnesota, there's a bit of extra reassurance for the time being, Doherty says because of the type of industries we have.
"A lot of our businesses are around food production, healthcare, insurance. A lot of industries that maybe aren't as impacted by this recession."