Hiring in the manufacturing sector for April 2007 will be a repeat of the substantial growth seen in April 2006, but service-sector growth will be less than last year according to the April 2007 Employment Expectations report released Tuesday from the Leading Indicator of National Employment (LINE), a collaborative effort between the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.
The responses to the March 2007 SHRM/Rutgers LINE survey show no evidence of widespread wage inflation, and indicate that new-hire compensation is increasing more slowly than it was a year ago.
Hiring problems are still a major concern for both the manufacturing and service sectors, although recruiting difficulty is down in manufacturing, while it is up in the service-sector.
Within the manufacturing sector, the employment expectations index for April 2007 was almost flat, decreasing from 50.1 for March 2007 to 49.7 for April 2007. Slightly more manufacturers are planning to add to their workforce in April 2007 than in April 2006 (60.7 percent vs. 57.6 percent).
In the service sector, there are fewer employers planning to increase hiring in April 2007 than in April 2006 (55.7 percent vs. 58.2 percent).