A new Manpower Employment Outlook Survey released on Tuesday revealed that employers are still not quite ready to begin hiring new talent with their companies. With a mere 5 percent of employers saying they expect to hire in the second quarter, there’s no doubt that businesses still have low confidence in the economy.
Industry Data from the Survey
According to the Manpower survey, while 5 percent of 18,000 employers said they expect to hire in the second quarter of 2010, this percentage shows a moderate increase from the previous three quarters, which only revealed 2 percent of employers looking to hire. This is better news for unemployed workers.
Even better, when broken into specific industry sectors, some of numbers don’t look bad at all:
- Leisure and hospitality: 17 percent in second quarter (up from 4 percent in first quarter)
- Professional and business services: 15 percent (up from 5 percent)
- Mining: 11 percent (up from 1 percent)
- Manufacturing, nondurable goods: 9 percent (up from 1 percent)
- Financial activities: 9 percent (up from 2 percent)
- Transportation and utilities: 8 percent (up from -6 percent)
- Manufacturing, durable goods: 8 percent (up from -3 percent)
- Information: 8 percent (up from 0 percent)
- Wholesale and retail trade: 7 percent (up from 4 percent)
- Construction: 4 percent (up from 12 percent)
- Other services: 4 percent (up from 2 percent)
- Government: -1 percent (up from -3 percent)
The only sector that did not see a chance for improvement in the second quarter is education and health services, for which 3 percent were expected to hire as opposed to 4 percent in the first quarter.
Numbers by Region
The survey also looked at what employers thought about their chances of hiring broken down by region. This gives a broader perspective of how the economy might be improving according to the area you live in:
- Northeast (8 percent, up from 3 percent in first quarter): This region includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.
- West (6 percent, up from 2 percent): Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
- South (6 percent, down from 7 percent): Puerto Rico and Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.
- Midwest (4 percent, down from 6 percent): Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
Is the Economy Getting Better or Worse?
Luckily for unemployed workers, things are looking up in the economy, even if only a little bit. The data from Manpower, while not as optimistic, does fall in line with data from the National Association of Business Economics, which predicted a good employment outlook for 2010.
Slight improvements are undoubtedly better than the crash and fall we saw in 2008 and 2009. Hopefully, by the time it’s time to report for the third quarter – and the jobs President Barack Obama says are on the way – employers will feel even better about how they can help unemployed workers looking to get on their feet.