Manpower Survey Offers Promise For Hiring
Amid a period of sobering unemployment and a tough job market, any positive report on future prospects for earning a paycheck comes as a welcome change of pace.Manpower Inc., one of the nation’s largest employment agencies, has provided that change of pace, if only for the first part of next year.
Manpower’s most recent quarterly job outlook, for the nation and the area, indicates employers are more willing to hire workers from January through March compared to the same period at the start of 2009. Employers for the United States as a whole and in the Greensboro-High Point metropolitan area anticipate a moderate increase in their hiring plans for first quarter, Manpower reports.
Of the more than 28,000 U.S. employers surveyed, 12 percent anticipate an increase in staff levels in the first quarter.
It’s the first positive outlook after three consecutive quarterly surveys where more U.S. employers planned to cut rather than bolster staff, said Mary Ann Laskey, spokeswoman for Milwaukee-based Manpower.
In the Greensboro-High Point area, 14 percent of companies surveyed intend to hire more employees, while 9 percent expect to reduce payrolls, Manpower reports. The remaining local employers either aren’t certain or plan to maintain current staff levels.
“(Local) employers are significantly more optimistic about hiring activity as compared to one year ago, when 10 percent of companies surveyed planned to increase staff levels and 17 percent expected to cut payrolls,” Manpower reports.
The possibly gradual shift in the local job market is reflected in activity at the High Point office of the N.C. Employment Security Commission. The office on Wednesday hosted an employment agency, Around The Clock Staffing, that was seeking applicants for industrial maintenance, assembly and production positions.
Job orders are up from this time last year, while the number of people seeking unemployment assistance through the High Point ESC has lessened somewhat, said Assistant Manager Charles Diggs.
“It’s definitely better. We’re posting new job orders every day. At this time a year ago, we’d go a whole week and post one or two job orders,” Diggs said. “This morning (Wednesday), we got three or four new job orders in. It’s starting to move in the right direction.”
Source: Paul Johnson, High Point Enterprise - Thurs Dec. 10, 09 at msnbc.msn.com
