Although more employers are projected to hire rather than lay off workers in February, the numbers are still expected to be behind from 2011, according to a report from the Society for Human Resource Management.
In fact, service sector hiring is predicted to fall by a net of 12.3 points while manufacturing sector hiring is believed to drop by a net of 2.5 points.
The report also shows a net of 20.9 percent of respondents plan to add jobs in February 2012 as opposed to a net of 33.2 percent of respondents that did so in 2011, representing a 12.3 point drop. Still, February shows a more positive outlook as more surveyed service-sector companies plan to hire at 26.3 percent than lay off at 5.4 percent.
In the manufacturing sector, a net of 40.2 percent of respondents expect to hire workers in February 2012, a decline from the 42.7 percent in 2011; however, the manufacturing sector is believed to have more companies hiring at 49.1 percent workers than cutting at 8.9 percent jobs in February.
"The economy is showing gains in job growth but not at the pace needed to significantly bring down the unemployment rate," says Jennifer Schramm, GPHR, and manager of workplace trends and forecasting at SHRM.
In comparison with past-month trends, the report reveals that the recruiting-difficulty index and new-hire compensation for January 2012 saw an uptick in both the manufacturing and service sectors.
"Despite the high number of people seeking employment, finding workers to fill highly skilled jobs remains difficult," Schramm says. "Those job seekers able to land such job offers are likely the ones seeing the small gains in new-hire compensation tracked in the SHRM LINE report."
During January 2012, the report also shows that a net total of 12.2 percent of HR managers in the manufacturing sector say they faced recruiting difficulty, and among the service sector, a net total of 6.8 percent of HR managers say they experienced difficulty in recruiting for key positions.
While the report does not indicate specific salary bumps, it does show an index of the general up or down trend. Of the respondents, the number of those increasing new-hire compensation grew by 1.8 points in the manufacturing sector and 5.6 points in the service sector in comparison with 2011.
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