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Employment Prospects Remain Strong, BNA Survey Finds

NEWS RELEASE

Contacts:
Karen James Cody,
BNA - Press Contact

Washington, DC (June 19, 2006) – Strong hiring projections for the third quarter of 2006 are keeping pace with second-quarter figures or running ahead of last year's projections in some categories, according to the results from 111 employers who responded to BNA's latest quarterly employment survey.

Job prospects for technical and professional workers remain solid, with 27 percent of employers expecting to add new workers through July, August, and September. Demand for technical and professional workers appears to be greater in smaller organizations – those with fewer than 1,000 workers – than among their larger counterparts (32 percent versus 20 percent, respectively).

The BNA survey also finds that:

Employment prospects are similarly robust for production and service workers, with 30 percent of surveyed employers projecting to add positions in this category during the third quarter of 2006 (up from 29 percent in the previous quarter, and 20 percent one year ago). Again, small employers are driving the demand in this category (41 percent, as compared with larger employers at 10 percent)

Hiring prospects for office and clerical workers remain stable. Fourteen percent of surveyed employers plan to add office and clerical staff in the coming quarter, compared to 14 percent last quarter, and 15 percent a year ago.

Nearly half of surveyed organizations (46 percent) report difficulty filling professional and technical job vacancies for the second quarter of 2006, up 13 points from the previous quarter (33 percent) and eight points from the same period in 2005 (38 percent). Difficulties filling these vacancies are far more common among large employers (62 percent) than smaller ones (39 percent).

Reports of employees on temporary layoff during the second quarter of this year are at record lows. Three percent of employers report having at least some technical and professional workers on layoff in April and May, down from 6 percent recorded during the same period one year ago.

BNA's survey of the employment outlook has been conducted quarterly since 1974. This quarter's report is based on responses from 111 human resource and employee relations executives representing a cross section of U.S. employers, both public and private.

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BNA is a leading publisher of print and electronic news and information, reporting on developments in business, labor relations, law, health care, economics, taxation, environmental protection, health and safety, and other public policy and regulatory issues.

For more information on the survey results, contact the BNA Survey Research Unit at (202) 452-4389. For press copies of the report, contact Karen James-Cody at (202) 452-4169.