Successful recruitment strategies involve more than just knowing how to advertise for positions. HR professionals need to focus on where the talent is. Understanding current labor market trends and workforce demographics will give you an edge over the competition in designing and delivering recruitment messages that work.

The following provides essential resource information to various federal and local sites containing labor market, demographic, and compensation trends. Being able to transform the information available from published statistics into useful recruitment strategies can be quite valuable when justifying hiring and compensation rates. Labor market trends provide indicators on what the future may look like and can assist in long-term human resource planning.

Federal:

U.S. Department of Labor
Federal government labor portal site.

Career OneStop
Includes state job bank, salary information and job description writer.

Wages
Topics covering wage and labor laws.

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
Links to statistics covering economic conditions and labor issues.

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data
Links to raw data covering employment, price indexes, compensation, and productivity.

Consumer Price Indexes
CPI represents changes in prices of all goods and services purchased for consumption by urban households.

Employment Situation
Current unemployment rate and labor market activity.

Labor Force (Demographic) Data
Contains links to files of projected labor force data.

National Compensation Survey - Compensation Cost Trends
Produces quarterly indexes measuring change over time in labor costs (ECI) and quarterly data measuring level of average costs per hour worked (ECEC).

Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Program
Produces employment and wage estimates for over 800 occupations.

The Occupational Outlook Handbook
Career and occupational information.

Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections
Develops information about the labor market for the nation as a whole for 10 years in the future.

Tomorrow's Jobs
Highlights of Bureau of Labor Statistics' projections of the labor force and occupational and industry employment.

U.S. Economy at a Glance Statistics
Covering major economic indicators.

Wages by Area and Occupation
Wage data by geographic region and occupation.

State/Local Markets:

Illinois

Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES)
State portal site.

LMI Source
Labor market information includes employment statistics, job forecast, wages and demographic characteristics.

Employment Projections
Employment projections available for industries and occupations.

Iowa

Iowa Labor Market Information Directory
Table of contents to labor market information.

Iowa Workforce Development
State portal site.

Iowa Workforce Information Network
Links covering labor market information, unemployment, nonfarm employment.

The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Wage Survey
Provides employment and wage estimates by occupation.

Wisconsin

Skilled Workers, Quality Jobs
Report from The Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS).

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development
State portal site.

Wisconsin Economic Outlook
Quarterly forecast from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) Economic Outlook Survey June 2008

Wisconsin's Worknet
Wisconsin's Workforce and Labor Market Information System.