Not an uncommon move in this tight job market for executives, says Jonathan Freedman, president of Mage LLC, a business management consulting company in Needham. His client, the former CEO, negotiated a compensation package with his new employer that will allow him to work his way back to his original CEO salary.
“There are not that many quarter-million jobs left, at least not floating around,” says Freedman.
The executive and mid-level jobs market is about as tight as a 14-inch collar around a 16-inch neck. According to the latest Lee Hecht Harrison Career mobility Index, four out of five Americans laid off in the third quarter of 2004 are still looking for jobs. While Lee Hecht Harrison, a global career services firm with a Boston office, conducted a nationwide telephone survey of 1,010 adult Americans, the figure reverberates in Boston, particularly in the mutual funds and investments sector.
U.S. Department of Labor statistics for Massachusetts confirm a 14 percent hike in unemployment in executive, administrative and managerial positions from 1999 to 2002 - the most recent data available.
Even with a higher rate of general unemployment in 2002, the number of executives and managers out of work nearly doubled to 25,000.
“The search firms report picking up and getting back, but it not a great market,” says Fred Folkes, professor of organizational behavior and director of Human Resources Policy Institute at the Boston University School of Management. Folkes cites the shrinking number of headquarters in Boston, once the corporate homes to such companies as Fleet Boston and John Hancock, which quite often means eliminations or consolidations at the top.
In some cases, the situation is dire. Executives are looking elsewhere, like New York or Chicago for work, even commuting instead of uprooting families, or in some cases relocating to where the job is.
As with Freedman’s client, others are negotiating salaries in lower-level positions to include compensation packages that leverage their skills and try to bring their salaries close to where they might have been.
“I’ve seen ups and downs - this is probably the biggest down I’ve seen in the sense that there hasn’t been a strong comeback,” says Michael Kulesza, who founded Boston-based executive search firm Anthony Michael & Co. in 1982. These days, he seems more CEOs keeping their jobs and more mid-level managers like vice presidents out in the cold.
Not to say there is no job growth in town.
“It’s not in the high paying fields,” says Dan Nadeau, vice president director of professional services at Lee Hecht Harrison, of the growth. “It’s in the service oriented fields.”
Health care, biotech, academic and some manufacturing - like semiconductors - are among those industries hiring.
George Davis, managing partners of Egon Zehnder International’s Boston office, says he sees the squeeze at the senior executive and general managerial levels with salary bases $200,000 and above.
“Caveat is,” says Davis, “if you have a specific niche function at a senior level there may not be as many opportunities in Boston as before, due to consolidation.
Naomi R. Kooker can be reached at nkooker@bizjournals.com
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