Job claims statistics are the 'closest source of truth that we have': CareerBuilder CEO

Unemployment claims surged in the past two weeks due to the spread of COVID-19. CareerBuilder CEO Irina Novoselsky joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move to discuss the high number of jobless claims around the country.

Video Transcript

- First up, though, we want to talk more about those initial jobless claims and the incredible numbers we have been seeing there. For that, we're joined by Irina Novoselesky. She is the CEO of CareerBuilder. She's joining us from New York. Irina, it is good to see you. I hope you're well. And first of all, talk to us about the number that we saw today and, looking at your own internal data from CareerBuilder, what kind of numbers we could continue to see.

IRINA NOVOSELESKY: Yeah. It was really insightful. The jobs claim number right now is really the closest source of truth that we have, because the March Friday report that's coming out this week is going to be delayed, as well as the unemployment numbers are going to be delayed. One of the things that we saw is, in the first week of March and second week of March, there actually wasn't a lot of negative movement. People were continuing to post jobs, candidates were continuing to show up.

We actually started to see the big shift in the third week, which you saw as a result of that 3 million jobs claims number. And then the bigger shift we actually saw last week. That really was predicting the 6 million. And going into what we've seen the last two days is only increasing. We've actually started publishing our data in order to arm the candidates with this live news feed so that they can know what to do, what industries to go to. But from what we're seeing, it's continuing to increase right now.

DAN ROBERTS: Irina, Dan Roberts here. Thanks for coming on. As you look at the numbers, I'm sure you're looking industry by industry. And I'm just curious how much you guys are able to tell which of these jobless claims are from people who do expect that, when we get through this time, which we hope and think there is going to be a point where the coast is clear, so to speak, people who expect to get their job right back? So we've talked a lot about the restaurant industry, which [INAUDIBLE] you know, devastated from all this. But a lot of those workers do expect that, as soon as restaurants are allowed to reopen, they will have a job again. What percentage of these people are in that kind of scenario?

IRINA NOVOSELESKY: Yeah, so the-- last week, we really saw the front line industries being impacted, exactly the ones that you mentioned, the transport-- the retail stores, the groceries-- rather, the restaurants, all of the ones that are on the front line. The bartenders we saw spike, even salespeople we saw spikes. But now what we're seeing actually this past week is the secondary impacts of those that are the suppliers to that, of those that depend on that.

And so that is the increase in the jobs number that you're seeing. And in the last few days and the first few days of April, what we're now seeing is the tertiary companies that have been pausing and waiting to take action, that now this is affecting their companies in material ways. And that's the next influx that we're going to see on the jobless number.

As far as the coming back and the bounceback that you talked about, it's hard to say. One of the things that we all can see is that it's impacting the hourly workers very disproportionately right now. But that might change as we continue to go into the coming weeks. And the second thing that is really disheartening to see is it's actually impacting minorities in a very disproportionate way.

And so we're seeing the African American community, the Latin American community, and females really displaced at a much higher number. And given today's April the 2nd and it's pay day, equal pay day around the world, it's really disheartening to see some of that wage progression that we've made to go back.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Irina, hi. It's Adam Shapiro. I was curious, the surge you've seen of people looking for work at home, what at-home jobs might there be? You've got the surge going in, you know, the kind of liquidity, who's on the other side? Are they hiring?

IRINA NOVOSELESKY: Yeah. So and one of the really interesting things is the surge on the at home, we've seen that increase week over week 62% of candidates going and searching specifically for at home. But if you think about what's been displaced, the displaced workers have actually been the one where it's really hard to find the same kind of work. And this is where they have to pivot really fast. So for example, if you worked in a bar, can you-- what can you be qualified to do from an administrative perspective? Some of the pivoting that we're seeing is actually in call centers.

If you have communication skills, if you have been on the sales side in restaurants or any of the front line facing companies, how do you pivot into the back office kind of jobs right now, even while you're on furlough or even for a few months while you bounce back? And that's a lot of customer service reps. But unfortunately, a lot of those skill sets are going to be not from home, and those are going to be more in different businesses that are open, such as grocery stores, logistics, and manufacturing companies, in some sense, that are looking for cashiers, looking for truckers, looking for different warehouse workers.

DAN HOWLEY: Hey, Irina. It's Dan Howley here. I just kind of wanted to ask if you're seeing any particular areas of the economy that are hiring now. You know, like you said, those truckers, those cashiers, people along those lines. Are you seeing any particular sectors really take off as far as hiring goes?

IRINA NOVOSELESKY: Yeah, so we just published our data. We put our top 20 hiring companies every single day. And one of the things that we saw is, even as of last week, when you look at the map of the US, there was about seven states that were still positive and were green as far as their jobs posting growing. And each of those states had an Amazon warehouse facility in it. However, as of our data this morning, even those states are now red.

And so across America we're really seeing a decline in job postings. But there definitely are companies, and most of them are what you said. It's the trucking companies that can't find enough people because there is a seven-week, approximately seven-week training to get a CDL license. So we're helping candidates find the right courses to do those in an expedited way online, because we're seeing a big drop in drivers, and that they're getting impacted a lot. So how do we help them pivot into a different kind of trucking job.

And then we're seeing, as you said, the grocery stores are having big surges. Some of the manufacturing companies that are trying to pivot to make different parts are having some surges. And then the things that we're actually seeing decline is somebody was talking about sports earlier today. And one of the highest ranking losses that we're seeing in jobs is actually around the sports field, where it's not what you would normally think about, but they're number two after bartenders for us right now, where they are in some way helping live sports, managing sports, connected to sports. They're being impacted significantly.

- Irina, I wanted to ask you more about what we're seeing geographically, because you note in some of your research to us the states that have, for example, Amazon fulfillment centers are not as hard hit. As you might imagine, and as Amazon has said, they've been ramping up hiring in those areas right now. What other kinds of regional patterns are you seeing?

IRINA NOVOSELESKY: We're seeing-- and we just posted our map of the US, but in middle America we actually highlighted Kentucky and Louisiana are seeing significant job postings decline. They're over the 50% mark in the middle of the country. The coasts are actually doing a little bit better. They're still declining, but not as much.

And in the South, we're seeing a lot of impact from a jobs perspective, as well. And one of the interesting things that we were looking at is, because we sit in this pivotal place where we see the global aspect, is we seem to be trending about two weeks or so behind the European impacts. And so right now, we're looking at about 25% job posting decline versus [INAUDIBLE] the same time period right now, they're at about 40%.

- All right, Irina, it's good to see you. Stay well. Irina Novoselesky is the CEO of CareerBuilder.