The ASA Staffing Index is reported nine days after each workweek, making it a virtual real-time measure of staffing employment trends. ASA research shows that staffing employment is a coincident economic indicator and leading employment indicator.
Total nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend up in October (+80,000). Over the past 12 months, payroll employment has increased by an average of 125,000 per month. In October, private-sector employment increased by 104,000, with continued job growth in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, healthcare, and mining. Government employment continued to contract in October.
Employment in professional and business services continued to trend up in October (+32,000) and has grown by 562,000 over the past 12 months. Within the industry, there have been modest job gains in recent months in temporary help services and in management and technical consulting services.
"While job seekers are still facing some very strong headwinds, it's encouraging to see that job growth is continuing across several key sectors," says Richard Wahlquist, president and chief executive officer of the American Staffing Association. "However, until we see more robust and sustained economic growth in the U.S. and globally, businesses will continue to put a high premium on flexibility and will be hesitant to add significant numbers of permanent workers."
Nonseasonally adjusted BLS data, which estimate the actual number of jobs in the economy, indicated that the staffing industry added jobs, with temporary help firms employing approximately 56,500 additional people (2.5%) from August to September. On a year-to-year basis, there were 7.8% more staffing employees in September compared with the same month in 2010. The ASA Staffing Index, which also is not seasonally adjusted and therefore is comparable to the nonadjusted employment figures reported by BLS, indicated a 3.4% increase in staffing payrolls sequentially (from August to September); in a year-to-year comparison, the index shows staffing employment is 1.2% lower than in September 2010.
BLS also provides employment estimates for search and placement firms, but those are nonseasonal only, and reports lag one month. Friday, BLS reported that search and placement employment in August was up 0.2% from July, totaling 255,100 for the month. In a year-to-year comparison, August employment was up 5.7% from the same month in 2010, continuing the trend of year-to-year employment growth in search and placement that began in February 2010. Since then, search and placement firms have added 32,400 jobs.
U.S. nonfarm payroll employment increased by 103,000 jobs in September, largely bolstered by the return of 45,000 telecommunications workers following a strike in August. Since April, on average, 72,000 jobs have been added to the economy each month--compared with the average of 161,000 jobs added monthly during the prior seven months.
In September, new jobs were mostly concentrated in professional services, health care, and construction. Government employment continued to decline. The overall unemployment rate remained at 9.1%.
Nonfarm payrolls increased 117,000, the Labor Department said on Friday, above market expectations for an 85,000 gain. The unemployment rate dipped to 9.1 percent from 9.2 percent in June, mostly the result of people leaving the labor force.
The payrolls count for May and June was revised to show 56,000 more jobs added than previously reported. The report was the first encouraging piece of economic data in some time.
"While I do not think this sounds the all-clear signal, it does quell some of the conversation that the U.S. is falling back into a recession," said Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets in New York.
"There are still plenty of headwinds, like Europe. This report pulls us back from the ledge a little bit."
Fears that the U.S. economy might be sliding back into recession, coupled with Europe's inability to tame its spreading debt crisis, have roiled global financial markets. Economists see the odds of a U.S. recession as high as 40 percent.
U.S. stock index futures rallied more than 1 percent on the report, while prices for Treasury debt slid. The dollar trimmed losses against the yen.
Top policymakers at the Federal Reserve will sift through the report when they meet on Tuesday but are not expected to announce any new measures to support the sputtering recovery.
The U.S. central bank has cut interest rates to zero and spent $2.3 trillion on bonds. Policymakers have said they want to see how the economy fares before taking any further action.
There were 398,000 initial unemployment claims filed in the week ended July 23, the Labor Department said Thursday.
That marks the first time since April 2, that the weekly initial claims number has fallen below 400,000, a level typically associated with payroll growth and a lower unemployment rate.
It also beats the 415,000 claims economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected, and was 24,000 lower than the previous week.
Earlier this year, it appeared initial claims were on a downward track. But they then hit a speedbump in April, as high oil prices, bad weather and Japan's tsunami started to weigh on businesses.
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When asked to rate how confident they are in their companies' prospects for business growth in the third quarter of 2011, 48% of the executives surveyed for the firm's Professional Employment Report said they are somewhat confident. Another 44% said they are very confident.
"Business confidence continues to grow," says Max Messmer of Robert Half. "Although some companies remain reluctant to commit to full-time hires, others are actively looking for professionals to help them take advantage of new growth opportunities and enhance client service."
Human resource professionals expressed the greatest business confidence among all executives interviewed, with 49% reporting they feel somewhat confident and 45% saying they are very confident.
Legal hiring managers have high expectations for hiring in the next three months, according to the report. "Demand is strong for legal professionals in law firms that aggressively laid off employees during the downturn," says Messmer. "Firms are focusing on senior- and partner-level lawyers with strong client relationships, solid business skills, and management experience."
Of the lawyers at law firms and corporations surveyed, 35% said they are likely to increase hiring in the third quarter of 2011. Lawyers, paralegals, and legal support staff are the positions in greatest demand. Lawyers cited bankruptcy and foreclosure, litigation, and general business and commercial law as the areas that will experience the most growth in the next three months.
Another area where executives anticipate hiring is the marketing field. Among hiring managers in advertising and marketing positions, 22% said they plan to increase staffing levels in the third quarter of 2011. The positions most in demand include Web designers and developers, mobile application designers and developers, and interactive marketing mangers.
"U.S. employers are telling us they will hire at the same steady pace reported for the previous two quarters," says Jeffrey A. Joerres, chairman and chief executive officer of ManpowerGroup. "The unadjusted U.S. data point to a couple bright spots--the most upbeat hiring plans from wholesale and retail trade and manufacturing sector employers since the downturn."
Among U.S. employers polled for the most recent Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, 20% expect to add to their work forces during the third quarter of 2011. Only 8% expect a decline in payrolls over the next three months.
For the third quarter of 2011, employers in 11 of the 13 industry sectors included in the survey have a positive outlook. The industries with the highest net employment outlook (the number of employers surveyed that plan to add staff minus the number that anticipate a decline in payrolls) are leisure and hospitality, mining, wholesale and retail trade, and professional and business services.
Third quarter forecasts remain positive, to varying degrees, in all 10 countries Manpower surveys in the Americas. Compared with last year, job prospects are relatively stable or improved in eight of 10 countries. U.S. employers have now reported a positive outlook for seven straight quarters.
The survey responses suggest that clients will increasingly have needs for the services staffing firms can provide. For example, respondents indicated that hiring better employees is more critical to their companies than filling empty positions quickly. "With increased candidate volumes flooding human resource departments and a lack of recruiting resources to process and screen hundreds of applicants for each position, organizations are finding it difficult to find quality hires," Aon's survey report noted.
Aon asked survey participants about the goal of their companies' talent acquisition function in the coming year--55% said an increased focus on the quality of candidates would be their priority. When asked specifically how important it would be for their companies to hire more productive employees, 20% said extremely important and 39% said very important.
Asked to consider how important it was for their companies to reduce early turnover of new employees, 18% said extremely important and 32% said very important. On the question of whether their companies wanted to fill positions faster, 17% said extremely important and 32% said very important.
Staying within their recruitment budget was less of a priority for survey respondents, with 14% saying it was extremely important and 28% saying it was very important.
"HR leaders appear less inclined to rebuild their recruiting function with full-time employees during recovery," the survey report concluded. "They may look at smaller fixes such as redesigning talent acquisition to be more scalable, streamlined, and to operate more cost-effectively."
Article as appeared on American Staffing Association
"Staffing firms have played a significant role in the jobs recovery, adding about 500,000 workers to industry payrolls since the recession ended in June 2009," says Richard Wahlquist, ASA president and chief executive officer. "With millions of Americans still looking for work, staffing firms offer job seekers not only temporary assignments, but also a bridge to permanent jobs."
Most districts reported improvements in labor market conditions. Many business contacts indicated they continued to prefer hiring temporary employees to meet increased demand due to persisting uncertainty about long-term economic conditions.
