Manufacturing Employment Growth for January Remains Stable

In January, overall employment growth remained stable among manufacturers, while service sector growth weakened, mostly due to cuts in hourly positions. Employment fell for both sectors in January, but more employers reported plans to actively recruit skilled workers in February, according to the January Leading Indicator of National Employment (Line™) report, a collaborative effort between the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.

Respondents to the report claim that it is still difficult to recruit skilled workers, and at this point in the economic recovery, there is no longer a pool of qualified, skilled job applicants for current job openings. An increase was seen in the amount of employers who plan to increase employee hirings during the next month.

The largest service sector cutbacks were among non-managerial employees. Employment fell for salaried managers and professionals, but the overall number of exempt vacant positions actually increased.

Recruiting difficulty and new hire compensation remained relatively unchanged, indicating that there was little pressure for HR executives to increase wages in order to recruit skilled workers.