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Job Growth Slowed Significantly in July, while the Unemployment Rate Climbed to 4.3%

The July Labor Market Report showed significantly lower-than-expected job growth and the highest unemployment rate since 2021. Stocks plummeted as financial markets were panicked due to fears that the economy was weakening. While some economists state that the Sahm Rule has been triggered, indicating a recession has started (happens when the three-month moving average of the U.S. unemployment rate is 0.5 percentage points or more above its lowest during the previous 12 months), others say there’s no need to panic.

Organizations displaying high RESPECT—the organizational attributes employees most want—deliver outsized external and internal performance.

In my last column, I shared research that revealed what employees most want from their employers. Research involving a representative sample of more than 200,000 employees in 27 countries identified these seven organizational attributes:

This post is the third and final of three Employee-Centric Manager (ECM) posts that our guest contributor, Leslie Minchin, VP of Transformation and Enablement at Engage2Excel, will share. Leslie’s 20 years of Talent Acquisition experience, as well as being a Project Manager Professional and a Certified Executive Coach, gives you someone who understands today's leadership challenges and has worked through them and developed best practices to overcome them. She is passionate about manager development and works closely with Dr. Jack Wiley to facilitate his Employee-Centric Manager training for our clients. Leslie is excited to write about the ECM program, its results, and its effect on the people who participate in the training.

In today’s competitive job market, companies continually search for innovative ways to attract and retain top talent. In a webinar we conducted in partnership with Recognition Professionals International (RPI), one highly effective strategy is the power of recognition. By recognizing and valuing potential employees before they join the team, organizations significantly enhance their recruitment efforts, improve employee engagement and foster long-term loyalty.