Uptick in Hiring on the Horizon

While the pace of announced workforce reductions is about 40% ahead of last year, a
surprising new report shows that, through September, employers have already announced
plans to hire more workers than they did in all of 2008.

The report released Monday by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray &
Christmas indicates that some employers feel confident enough about the prospects of
the recovery to begin adding workers, albeit slowly. Through September, employers have
announced plans to hire 169,385 workers this year, according to Challenger’s tracking.
That is 88% more than the 89,924 planned hires announced in the first three quarters of
2008. The 2009 nine-month total has, in fact, already surpassed the 2008 year-end total
of 118,600.

Surprisingly, most of the hiring plans announced this year have come from employers in
the retail sector, which has struggled amid falling consumer spending. These employers
announced plans to hire 33,640 workers, compared to less than 4,000 in all of 2008. The
biggest hiring sector behind retail is the government and nonprofit sector, which has
plans to add 28,469 workers. It is followed by the entertainment and leisure industry,
which is adding 22,370 new workers.

Read the rest at CIO Update.