Fewer human resource professionals feel positive about the fourth-quarter jobs market in comparison to 2010, finds a report by the Society for Human Resource Management.
In fact, only 34 percent of respondents believe the job market will grow during the fourth quarter of 2011 while 57 percent had that same confidence during 2011's second-quarter outlook. And 37 percent of respondents say their companies anticipate opening positions during the fourth quarter of 2011, representing a decline from the previous quarter when 44 percent of employers added workers.
"Many employers are getting more productivity out of their current staff by increasing their workers' hours on the job," says Jennifer Schramm, GPHR, and manager of workplace trends and forecasting at SHRM. "Human resource professionals said hourly workers logged longer hours in the third quarter of 2011 but anticipate the long days will not continue into the fourth quarter."
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The survey also finds that respondents in the Southeast have the highest jobs-outlook optimism at 43 percent, with those in the West trailing by 33 percent. The Northeast jobs-outlook optimism is at 29 percent, and the Midwest is the lowest at 28 percent. Fifty-three respondents report that their companies plan to keep total staff levels in the fourth quarter of 2011, although 37 percent of respondents anticipate hiring more staff. Ten percent of respondents expect their companies to lay off workers.
Regarding third-quarter trends, the report reveals that 60 percent of respondents say "skilled professionals" were the hardest type of worker to hire, and 15 percent of respondents says "skilled manual workers" were the second hardest type of worker to hire. Forty-four percent of employers represented in the report preserved staff numbers in the third quarter, as the same figure increased staff and 13 percent of respondents cut workers.
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