Hiring slowly improving

Employment expectations are at four-year lows for June in both the manufacturing and service sectors, but hiring has slowly improved compared to the past couple of months, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.
Those two sectors employ more than 90 percent of the nation’s private sector workers.
The Alexandria, Va.-based association’s report is based on a monthly survey of human resources professionals at more than 500 manufacturing and 500 services companies.
Employment expectations for June are down 37.1 percent in manufacturing and down 8.2 percent in the services segment.
In the manufacturing sector, 24.5 percent plan to hire in June, which is the highest percentage of such companies that said they will add jobs since November 2008. In addition, 25.9 percent said they will trim payrolls.
In the services sector, a net total of 24.8 percent of corporations will create jobs in June, with 41.4 percent saying they will hire and 16.6 percent saying they will cut jobs.
That 41.4 percent represents the highest such tally since September 2008 in that sector.
A combination of unemployed people seeking work and less jobs to go around means recruiting difficulty in both sectors in May was way down compared with a year ago.
In the manufacturing sector, a net of 23.8 percent of companies had less difficulty with recruiting last month, and in the service sector, a net of 35.8 percent of companies said the same.