ManpowerGroup News Release (06/11/13)

U.S. employers report a boost in confidence as the percentage of employers planning to add staff, 22%, reaches a four-year high, according to the latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey released today by ManpowerGroup. According to the seasonally adjusted survey results, the net employment outlook for the third quarter of the year is +12%, up from +11% during the second quarter and the third quarter of last year.

Employers have a positive outlook in all 13 industry sectors included in the survey: leisure and hospitality (+30%), wholesale and retail trade (+20%), mining (+18%), construction (+18%), professional and business services (+18%), transportation and utilities (+17%), financial activities (+15%), nondurable goods manufacturing (+14%), durable goods manufacturing (+13%), information (+12%), other services (+10%), government (+9%), and education and health services (+6%).

Conference Board News Release (06/10/13)

The Conference Board Employment Trends index increased to 111.76 in May from a revised 111.11 in April, up 3% from May 2012. While this offsets the declines of April and March, growth is still slow, and employment is unlikely to grow significantly this summer. The improvement stems from positive signals in seven of the eight ETI components. Positive components were number of temporary employees, job openings, percentage of firms with positions not able to fill right now, real manufacturing and trade sales, percentage of respondents who say they find “jobs hard to get,” industrial production, and ratio of involuntary part-time to all part-time workers.

NFIB News Release (06/11/13)

A May survey of 715 small-business members by the National Federation of Independent Business shows that confidence among small-business owners rose for the second straight month, up 2.3 points to 94.4. However, the Index of Small Business Optimism reveals a one-point decrease in planned job creation, and reported job creation was stagnant after rising for five months. “The unemployment rate remains in the mid-sevens and it is departures from the labor force—not job creation—that are contributing to its decline when it does fall,” says Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist at NFIB. The index shows an average gain of -0.04 workers per firm, and a net 16% of respondents increased worker compensation, marking a one-point gain. Additionally, 47% of respondents hired or tried to hire during the last three months, but of these, 81% reported few or no qualified applicants for open positions.