SHRM: February 2013 Hiring Expected to Jump in Manufacturing and Services

The manufacturing and service sectors are expected to increase hiring in February 2013 compared to one year ago according to a report from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Hiring: Manufacturing workers have the longest job tenure of any industry at 6 years with the same employer.

The report shows that the service-sector hiring rate will rise for the seventh consecutive month compared with a year ago. The manufacturing-sector hiring rate will rise for the sixth time in seven months compared with a year ago.

The findings are detailed in the SHRM LINE Report—Leading Indicators of National Employment. The report provides a snapshot of month-ahead hiring expectations. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report analyzes past-month hiring trends.)

Respondents include HR professionals from 500 private service-sector companies and 500 manufacturing companies.

The report shows three key hiring data trends:

• In the manufacturing sector, 56.4% of companies will hire while 9.2% will trim payrolls, leaving a hiring net of 47.2%. The remaining 34.4 percent expect to hold steady with no hiring or layoffs in February 2013;
• In the service sector, 43.5% of HR professionals said their company plans to hire workers while 10.4% will cut jobs, leaving a positive net of 33.1%. The remaining 46.1% are expected to hold steady with no hiring or layoffs in January 2013;
• On an annual basis—comparing February 2013 with February 2012—service-sector hiring will jump by a net of 12.2 points and manufacturing-sector hiring will rise by a net of 7 points.

“This is the second month in a row that we have seen hiring expectations at a four-year high in manufacturing,” said Jennifer Schramm, GPHR, and manager of workplace trends and forecasting at SHRM. “The private service sector also looks good.”

The January 2013 (the most recent month available) new-hire compensation index shows a net total of 7.3% of HR professionals in the manufacturing sector increased hiring packages as did a net total of 6.5 percent in the service sector.

The recruiting-difficulty index for January 2013 (the most recent month available) shows a net of 7.9% of manufacturers had more difficulty filling key jobs compared with one year ago. A net total of 8.6 percent of service-sector HR professionals reported an increase in recruiting difficulty during January 2013 compared to one year ago.

The SHRM LINE Report features the only national monthly employment indices capturing HR professionals’ past-month recruiting difficulty, a new-hire compensation index, and an index of exempt and non-exempt job vacancies (in addition to the month-ahead hiring expectations index highlighted above)

Highlights of SHRM LINE year-over-year findings:

Source: SHRM Leading Indicators of National Employment

To read the full SHRM LINE Report, visit: http://www.shrm.org/lineand click the “Latest LINE Report” button. Follow SHRM Research on Twitter @SHRM_Research.