Reports released this month by ADP, Liberum Research, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that unemployment continues to shrink as new jobs are added in the private and public sectors. In particular, January executive turnover numbers were overall positive, which is surprising given current stock market trends and the slowdown of the American economy (which we explored in the previous blog post). This, combined with steady job growth and low unemployment, could mean a positive turn for the economy.
A report by Liberum Research, the largest database of C-level executive change at public companies, shows that executive turnover in public companies remained solid at the beginning of this year. January mostly saw increases in turnover compared to January of last year. CEO changes increased 18%, overall C-suite changes increased 15%, and board of director changes went up 5%. The only decline for January was in CFO changes, which went down 2%. Compared to December 2015, January 2016 saw more decreases in executive turnover. CEO changes were down 1%, CFO changes were down 6%, and C-suite changes were down 22%. Board of director changes, by contrast, increased by 16%. The drug and biotech industry saw the most amount of change during the month of January across all categories examined by Liberum. There were 174 changes in the management category, 20 in CEO, 24 in CFO, and 75 in board of director.
In terms of overall employment, ADP’s January Employment Report showed an increase of 205,000 job in the private sector from December to January. The U.S. Government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Report reflected a growth of only 151,000 nonfarm jobs in January. The report showed that job gains were led by the retail trade, food services and drinking places, health care, and manufacturing industries. Unemployment was down by 1.1 million people, or 0.8 percentage point, compared to January 2015.