In another sign of a stagnant economy, relatively few companies have plans to hire more workers over the next three months, according to a recent survey of employers.
Just 29 percent of managers plan to increase hiring in the second quarter of 2008, according to an online survey for USA Today and CareerBuilder.com by Harris Interactive. The proportion of employers with plans for increased hiring is unchanged from the last quarterly survey.
The survey involved 2,757 hiring managers and human resource professionals. The new survey follows two monthly reports from the U.S. Department of Labor showing declines in the number of payroll jobs in the U.S. According to government reports, payrolls declined by a total of 85,000 jobs in January and February.
Based on a Thomson Financial survey, the consensus among economists is that payroll employment declined again in March.
In the new CareerBuilder survey, 7 percent of those surveyed plan to lay off workers, a solid improvement from the first quarter, when 11 percent planned layoffs.
Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed said they plan no changes in the size of their work force, about the same as the last quarterly survey. Nationally, only 22 percent of smaller companies plan to increase their number of permanent, full-time employees, vs. 33 percent for large companies.
Overall, pay raises will be modest in the next three months: 41 percent of the survey respondents said raises would be in the 1 percent to 3 percent range, even though inflation has averaged 4 percent in the 12 months ended February.
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