Looking Forward

Looking at all of the economic news lately, I have to wonder whether the job market's peaked. That's not to say demand for accountants is going to disappear any time soon, but it could be the high-speed chase a lot of firms have been describing could be about to hit the brakes. Why? There are still compliance issues to face, after all, and still a sense of too many jobs chasing too few professionals. But over the weekend, it seemed a lot of people began using the word "Recession" in their predictions for the economy's direction, and even though many give its occurrence odds no better than 50/50, for the first time in a long time we seem to be in real danger of suffering from more than a couple of speed bumps.

It's true the need for talent will remain, but I have to believe it's dynamics are going to morph. I can imagine a number of firms - large and small - who've managed to get by without the headcount they've wanted wondering whether they can just make do with the bench strength they've got. And some of those perks aimed at retaining top performers? They may get harder to justify.

These seem like pretty obvious observations, but then it seemed pretty obvious that people who were overextending their credit were going to get into trouble paying all that debt back one day. I don't think the accounting job crunch is any kind of reverse bubble - it's based on real supply and demand - but I do have this feeling that 2008 is going to be a year when those chasing candidates begin to slow down their efforts, even just a little bit.