Hiring Weakness Goes On, Survey Shows; War's End May Not Turn Around Trend
Hiring activity continues to deteriorate, and the end to the Persian Gulf war may not prove enough to turn the situation around.</br></br>A quarterly job-outlook survey suggests that the weakness in hiring has reached 1982 recession levels nationally and, in some geographic areas, has fallen below those levels.</br></br>The survey by Manpower Inc., which canvassed 15,000 companies, projects that net hiring strength in the second quarter will decline for the ninth quarter in a row, when adjusted for seasonal factors.</br></br>The employment-services concern found that, on an unadjusted basis, 18% of the companies plan to increase hiring in the second quarter, while 13% plan to reduce their work force. About 65% said they anticipate no change, and 4% didn't respond. That projected five percentage-point net hiring increase contrasts with a plus 18% a year ago and is the lowest for any second quarter since 1982, when it was a similar five percentage points.</br></br>Manpower noted that the latest survey was taken before last week's Persian Gulf cease-fire. But Mitchell Fromstein, Manpower president, maintains that although peace should improve the hiring picture somewhat, it probably won't provide the necessary lift to generate a turnaround. "To the degree that the war worsened the employment situation, (the end of war) should now improve it, leaving the basic underlying recession as it was," he says. "We're better off than we were a week ago, but are we better off than six months ago? The answer is no."