Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 30, 1993 TAG: 9308300044
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
The temporary help firm Manpower Inc. said Sunday that 22 percent of the businesses it polled planned to add employees during the last three months of the year. About 11 percent of the nearly 15,000 companies surveyed planned to cut jobs.
Three percent of the companies surveyed said they weren't sure of their plans, while the rest indicated that staffing levels would remain the same.
"Hiring strength is running behind the comparable periods of the 1983-84 [recession] recovery period, but it is making progress," said Manpower President Mitchell S. Fromstein.
The survey indicated the biggest job increases would be in wholesale and retail trade, where companies take on extra staff for the holiday season.
Other areas expected to grow are finance, insurance and real estate, with 17 percent of firms projecting new hiring and 7 percent predicting cutbacks.
That was good news for the Northeast, where many of those jobs are concentrated.
Among those seeing a rebound is Philip Morgan, president of Morgan Construction Co. in Worcester, Mass., which makes steel-rolling mill equipment. He's planning a 10 percent increase in his staff of 550, in addition to putting some of his 50 temporary workers on the payroll.
"There's been nothing going on in the last five years, and all of a sudden we've got three projects all at once," Morgan said.
But the overall picture in the Northeast remained spotty. The survey indicated hiring would be below the national average in the Northeast and West, about average for the Midwest and sharply above average in the South.
Lynne Barile, a Chamber of Commerce administrator in San Bernardino, Calif., said that community was hurting like many others in the state because of cuts in military spending.
"There really aren't any apparent signs of recovery," she said.
Among the poorest areas for hiring were government, transportation and public utilities, the survey said.
Manpower did not measure how many people companies are planning to hire or what kind of jobs they'll fill.
by CNB