Hiring in Service Sector Reaches Four-Year High

The National Employment report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has reported that 43.3 percent of service-sector employers are hiring in December while 9.3 percent of employers are cutting staff. The net increase of 34 percent hiring is a four-year high. The remaining 47.4 percent of employers expect no change in personnel numbers.

“The expected rise in service-sector hiring is likely sparked by consumer confidence and anticipated spending this winter holiday season,” says Jennifer Schramm, GPHR and manager of workplace trends and forecasting at SHRM.

On the other hand, hiring within the manufacturing sector is expected to drop for the month with 38.9 percent of responding companies expecting to hire and 13.6 percent expecting to reduce their work forces. The net result of a 25.3 percent increase in hiring remains positive though 47.5 percent of manufacturing companies expect no hiring activity at all.

Service-sector hiring will increase by a net of 12.2 percent over December 2012 and manufacturing-sector hiring will fall by 3.8 percent. Recruiting difficulty remained unchanged in the manufacturing sector but grew by 9.9 percent in the service sector. Additionally, the rate of increase for new-hire compensation decreased in both manufacturing and service sectors falling 1.2 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.