SHRM Report: November 2012, One-Third of Employers Expect to Hire

Alexandria, Va. – Nov. 1, 2012 – Roughly one-third of manufacturing and service-sector companies expect to hire workers in November 2012 according to a report from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

The uptick marks the fourth consecutive month that the hiring rate will rise in manufacturing and services compared with the same period a year ago.

The findings are detailed in the SHRM LINE Report—Leading Indicators of National Employment®. The report provides a snapshot of month-ahead hiring expectations. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report analyzes past-month hiring trends.)

Respondents include HR professionals from 500 service-sector companies and 500 manufacturing companies.

The report shows three key data trends:

• In the manufacturing sector, 45.7 percent of HR professionals said their company plans to hire workers while 12.1 percent will cut jobs, leaving a positive net of 33.6 percent. The remaining 42.2 percent are expected to hold steady with no hiring or layoffs in November 2012;

• In the service sector, 43.7 percent of companies will hire while 10 percent will trim payrolls, leaving a hiring net of 33.7 percent. The remaining 46.3 percent report no staffing changes are expected during November 2012; and

• Service-sector hiring will rise by a net of 16.4 points and manufacturing-sector hiring will rise by a net of 6.3 points on annual basis (comparing November 2012 with November 2011).

“Increased consumer confidence is sparking a rise in holiday hiring among many employers in the service sector,” said Jennifer Schramm, GPHR, and manager of workplace trends and forecasting at SHRM.

The SHRM LINE Report also features the only national monthly employment indices capturing HR professionals’ past-month recruiting difficulty, a new-hire compensation index, and an index of exempt and non-exempt job vacancies (in addition to the month-ahead hiring expectations index highlighted above)

SHRM LINE data for last month shows that:

• Recruiting difficulty rose 3.6 points in the service sector and fell 2.6 points in the manufacturing sector on an annual basis, comparing October 2012 to October 2011;

• Few companies increased new-hire compensation during October 2012–only a net of 5.3 percent of manufacturing companies and a net of 7.0 percent of service-sector companies did so; and

• The good news is that few decreased new-hire compensation: only 1.4 percent in the manufacturing sector and 0.6 percent in the service sector did so.

“With recruiting difficulty mixed and no major increases in salaries planned for 2013, there were also few changes in new-hire compensation in October,” said Schramm. “The new-hire compensation index was unchanged in manufacturing and down only slightly in services.”

Highlights of SHRM LINE year-over-year findings:

Source: SHRM Leading Indicators of National Employment

To read the full SHRM LINE Report, visit: http://www.shrm.org/line and click the “Latest LINE Report” button.