MILWAUKEE — Even as employers nationwide slashed some 63,000 jobs last month, more than a quarter of U.S. companies say they plan to hire within the next three months, according to a survey of 14,000 companies.
Across the country, 26 percent of companies expect to increase the size of their workforce between April and June, according to the survey to be released today by Manpower Inc.
Nine percent plan a decrease, while 60 percent predict no change and 5 percent are unsure, the Milwaukee-based global staffing company found.
The numbers are slightly worse than those for the same quarter last year, when 28 percent of employers expected to hire and 7 percent planned to cut jobs. But they’re better than the predictions for the current quarter, when hiring was expected to outpace job cuts by just 10 percentage points.
The survey’s margin of sampling error is less than plus or minus 1 percentage point.
The results show that employers are being more thoughtful in their hiring practices but that they’re not scaling back completely, said Jonas Prising, Manpower’s president for North America.
“Nobody’s pulling the handbrakes yet,” he said. “Everybody’s braking somewhat. Everyone’s cautious. Most sectors are being cautious.”
The quarterly survey conducted since 1962 predicts a modest slowdown in virtually every industry across the board, including manufacturing, mining, education, and wholesale and retail trade.
The outlook was bleakest in the construction industry, where 28 percent of companies anticipate growth and 13 percent expect job cuts.
Those numbers are down from the year-ago quarter, when 36 percent expected to hire and 7 percent planned to downsize. They’re up from the current quarter, in which just 17 percent of companies expected to hire between January and March, but the first quarter is typically a slower period for the construction industry.
Prising said jobs can still be had, but job-seekers will need to home in on regions and industries that are still seeing growth.
“You may have to move. You may have to look a bit harder,” he said. “You may have to decide which sectors you want to focus on, but there are still employment opportunities out there.”
