November Continues Growth Trend in Executive Turnover

Liberum’s executive turnover data for the month of November has continued to show growing turnover within the executive ranks similar to what we have seen for most of previous months this year. This trend was a complete reversal of what we saw for the previous two years. November’s increase in executive turnover took place while we saw a positive trend with regard to the number of people filing new unemployment claims and, even more significantly, the economy has actually generated more jobs. This is not say we are out of the woods with regard to overall employment and the economy but more positive employment signs continue to show up. In early December, the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced the latest employment numbers. The official unemployment rate dropped a modest 0.4% down to 8.6%, the lowest rate since March 2009. There still remains 13.3 million people unemployed a seriously high number. The modest gain in employment is further tempered by the fact that according to BLS 315,000 people had given up looking for work. Even las t week we saw another drop in the number of people applying for unemployment.

Below Liberum has outlined in graphical format a November breakdown for CEO, CFO and overall C-level related turnover.

C-LEVEL RELATED CHANGES FOR NOVEMBER

CEO RELATED CHANGES FOR NOVEMBER

CFO RELATED CHANGES FOR NOVEMBER

For the month of November, CEO changes increased a huge 125%, CFO changes increased 111%, overall C-level (as defined by Liberum Research as board of directors, CEOs, CFOs down to corporate VPs) changes increased 94% while board of director changes declined 11% as compared with November 2010 totals. The month to month change in executive turnover on the other hand was negative for November 2011 when compared with October 2011 totals. CEO changes declined 12%, CFO changes declined 15%, overall C-level changes declined a mere 2% and board of director changes declined only 3%. Liberum expects the fourth quater of 2011 to show an increase over the same quater in 2010. Stay tuned.