In a post called The Slashing May Slow, Todd Raphael, of the Electronic Recruiting Exchange, is reporting a little bit of good news for recruitment in the United States.

There is light at the farthest corner of the end of this tunnel. No, really. Way, way, way down in the corner, but it is there.

The basis of this is simple enough. US companies have already made huge cuts in staffing, and the rate at which they expect to continue making cuts is slowing. Todd backs this up with very specific data from Watson Wyatt that confirms a slowdown in layoffs (at last I get a chance to use the word slowdown in a positive way!)

Here in China we are at the tail-end of the supply chain and this good news will take time to reach us. We have only recently begun to get over Beijing Olympic Delusional Syndrome (BODS) so it is hard to see how people could move to optimism quickly.

So, as they say, it will get worse before it gets better. Some staff in China will soon pick up on the early signs of a recovery, but a small few will still have to go through the whole process of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance (of the economic crisis).

But maybe at least now the beginning of the end is in sight, and that will trigger a new response: Calm.

Then spending. Then hiring.