
John Touey
10/03/2011 02.32 EST
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I feel the need to temper the optimism of my mid-year report on executive employment, with a post more fraught with the anxiety that any professional in the talent acquisition industry might be feeling in a global economy that appears to be teetering on the brink of, if not collapse, then a prolonged period of stagnation. As all prognosticators do, let me get the defense of my earlier predictions out of the way.
First, I hedged on Greece and Greece came through in a big way in terms of throwing Europe into economic consternation. Second, the debt ceiling debacle accomplished something that I really did not think possible in my lifetime; it shook global confidence in the full faith and credit of the United States of America. I’d like to thank our elected leaders on both sides of the aisle for that little present. Which leads me to this question: If two U.S. political parties can’t agree on fiscal policy, how can 17 sovereign states begrudgingly connected by a common currency do it?
So, given the uncertainty produced by the events of the last quarter, what keeps this talent acquisition professional up at night?
Luckily for me, I hear that you don’t require as much sleep as you get older. Also, a little anxiety is always a good motivator, in my opinion. Let’s hope our global leaders find a similar motivation to step up and confront some of the systemic challenges we are facing; we need a long-term plan rather than the stop-gap measures we are currently seeing from our leaders at home and abroad. In the meantime, I’m down to five hours of sleep on a good night. So, what’s keeping you up?