Bloomberg (03/13/12) Timothy R. Homan

Companies in the U.S. plan to increase hiring during the next three months, according to a survey by Manpower Inc. The company’s second-quarter employment index rose to 10%, up from 9% in the prior quarter on a seasonally adjusted basis. The share of survey respondents who plan to add employees from April through June climbed to 18%, the most since the third quarter of 2011, while the share of companies expecting to cut back on hiring declined to 6%, down from 9% in the previous period. “Positive hiring intentions tell us that employers are seeing increased demand for their products and services, and that is good news for the labor market,” Jonas Prising, president of the Americas for Manpower, said in a statement. “Although we are not out of the woods yet, our data shows that this hiring progression is increasingly solid.”