BNA Survey of Employers Finds Third Quarter Employment Prospects Unpredictable

  Arlington, Va. (June 8, 2011) – There has been little change in employment prospects for production and service or technical and professional employees in 2011. Over the first three quarters of this year, employer hiring intentions have fluctuated in a seemingly random fashion for these two groups, while declining for office and clerical staff, according to projections from 215 employers responding to BNA’s quarterly employment survey for the third quarter of 2011.

Projected hiring, however, is up over levels recorded one year ago and well above levels observed in 2009. Anticipated hires for production and service staff has not followed any discernible pattern year-to-date. The 26 percent of surveyed employers that anticipated adding production and service positions in the first quarter of 2011 fell to 22 percent in the second quarter and then rose to 26 percent for the third quarter of this year. There also is little discernible direction in hiring trends this year for technical and professional staff. Anticipated hires increased slightly from 31 percent of employers in January through March to 33 percent in April through June, then declined 1 percentage point to 32 percent for July through September of this year.

The employment picture has deteriorated, however, for office and clerical workers. Projected hires for office and clerical staff have declined from 18 percent of employers in the first quarter of this year to 15 percent in the second quarter and 12 percent in the third quarter. The survey also finds that:

• Eleven percent of surveyed employers reported production and service workers on layoff in the second quarter, up 1 percentage point from the first quarter but down 11 points from one year ago (22 percent). This figure was 8 percent for technical and professional staff, up from 4 percent in the first quarter but down 6 points from Q2 last year (14 percent). This figure has declined sharply from the 15 percent. Office and clerical workers on layoff has increased from 5 percent in Q1 to 7 percent. This figure, however, has declined sharply from the 15 percent of employers reporting layoffs in the second quarter of 2011.

• There has been relatively little change in reported job vacancies last quarter. For production and service workers, “difficult to fill” positions went from 15 to 14 percent in the second quarter. There has been no change in this number for technical and professional workers (42 percent); and an increase from 5 percent to 8 percent for office and clerical staff.

BNA’s survey of the employment outlook has been conducted quarterly since 1974. This report is based on responses from 215 human resource and employee relations executives representing a cross-section of U.S. employers, both public and private.

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