Temp hiring will be strong in the last half of the year, while full-time perm recruiting will mirror the first six months, says CareerBuilder’s mid-year hiring forecast.
A different forecast predicts the number of temp workers employed by staffing firms and agencies will also grow. The Palmer Forecast says that on a seasonally adjusted basis temp workers will increase 6.4% in the 3rd quarter compared to the same quarter in 2012.
Prepared by consultants G. Palmer & Associates, the forecast predicts a slowing, though still strong, increase in the number of new jobs created by the industry in the remainder of the year.
“Our forecast for the 2013 third quarter follows recent trends demonstrating growth and indicating another increase in demand for temporary workers, marking the fifteenth-consecutive quarter of year-over-year increases,” said Greg Palmer, founder and managing director of G. Palmer & Associates, an Orange County, California-based human capital advisory firm.
CareerBuilder’s survey of 2,000 hiring managers and HR professionals shows employers are expecting to hire more temps in the last months of the year, than was the case in 2012. Compared to last year, the 31% that plan to hire temp or contract workers is about half again as high as the 20% who said that in last year’s forecast.
The just released CareerBuilder forecast also found:
- 44% of employers plan to hire full-time, permanent employees, on par with last year;
- 25% plan to hire part-time employees, up from 21% last year.
The optimism, however, doesn’t necessarily translate into immediate hiring plans. Only 30% of the respondents said they expected to add to their full-time, permanent headcount this quarter. That’s identical to what the survey respondents said a year ago, and is off from the 34% adding full-time headcount last quarter.
In its year ahead forecast released at the beginning of 2013, CareerBuilder reported that 26% of the hiring managers and HR respondents expected to add permanent, full-time workers. The forecast also found 40% of employers planned to hire temporary and contract workers during the year, up from 36% in 2012.
“Companies are adding more employees to keep pace with demand for their products and services, but they’re not rushing into a full-scale expansion of headcount in light of economic headwinds that still linger today,” said CareerBuilder CEO Matt Ferguson. “The projected surge in temporary hiring from July to December is evidence of both a growing confidence in the market and a recession-induced hesitation to immediately place more permanent hires on the books.”
The G. Palmer & Associates report said the 2nd quarter results of temp agency hiring came in at a 6.9% increase over the same quarter in 2012. That was better than the 5.9% the Palmer Forecast predicted. “Results, in part, reflected increasing uncertainty in the economy,” the firm said in releasing its 3rd quarter forecast.
Greg Palmer also predicted that bey the end of the year the temp penetration rate — the percentage of temporary workers in the total workforce — will surpass the record 2.03% set in May 2000.