While I was browsing through Facebook this evening, I came across a new feature I hadn’t seen before called Facebook Lexicon. I’m not sure how I missed this, apparently it’s been around since April 2008.
Given that January saw more layoff in the United States than we have seen in decades, I decided to do a comparative search with Facebook Lexicon for the terms “laid off” and “hired.”
Results of the queries "laid off" and "hired" in Facebook Lexicon.
The results are certainly not surprising. In 2008, hirings appeared to increase steadily from April till mid-June, when many new graduates are hitting the job market. After June, hirings appear to decrease on a steady basis through the end of the year.
Mentions of layoff stayed generally low throughout the early portion of 2008. Then right around late September and early October it appears that layoffs started to significantly increase. This is not surprising.
What is surprising, however, is that it appears that mentions of hiring are not terribly far off from where they were this time in 2008. Certainly layoffs are much higher than last year, but at least it appears that companies are still hiring.
