Careerbuilder.com's Employment Forecast Reveals Hiring Will be Strong in 2005

Four-in-ten workers plan to change jobs in 2005

CHICAGO, December 13, 2004 - CareerBuilder.com, the nation's largest online job network with more than 15 million unique visitors* and over 600,000 jobs, released the results of its latest survey tracking projected recruitment and job search activities for the upcoming quarter and year. The survey, titled "The Pulse: A Quarterly Forecast on Hiring Trends and Job Changes," was conducted from November 22, 2004 to December 2, 2004 of more than 2,500 workers, including 1,000 hiring managers primarily operating in services industries.

HIRING HIGHLIGHTS

"2005 is poised to be a year of opportunity for employers and workers," said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder.com. "The U.S. has added close to 2 million jobs so far in 2004 and our latest survey shows we will see a steady stream of new jobs in the coming year. Nearly 15 percent of hiring managers plan to add 200 or more workers in 2005. One-in-four say they will increase their recruitment budgets in the first half of 2005 and more than one-third say they will do the majority of their hiring for the year in the first quarter."

Nearly three-in-ten hiring managers plan to hire between 11 and 50 workers in 2005; one-in-ten plan to hire between 51 and 100. Of those hiring in 2005, 66 percent say they will be recruiting workers for newly created positions while 34 percent say they will be replacing workers who left voluntarily or involuntarily. The number one reason for adding new positions is to expand operations, as cited by 19 percent of hiring managers. Forty-five percent of hiring managers say they will increase employment at their locations from the fourth quarter 2004 to the first quarter 2005 with a mix of replacement and incremental workers. While slightly lower than the 49 percent who said they would increase employment from third to fourth quarter, the number who planned to decrease their staffs remained constant at 12 percent.

Hiring Demographics Hiring managers are targeting various segments of the workforce for new recruits in 2005:
Diversity: Expanding employee demographics will continue to be a major initiative for companies. Thirty-one percent of hiring managers state that diverse candidates will compile one-fourth or more of their new hires.
Hourly: Nearly half of hiring managers say that hourly workers will make up 50 percent or more of their new hires.
College: Eighty-eight percent of hiring managers will add recent college graduates to their staffs. High School: 52 percent of hiring managers plan to recruit high school students.
Temporary: 50 percent of hiring managers plan to hire temporary workers.

Most Popular Positions
The top five areas hiring managers plan to recruit for in 2005 include customer service, sales, healthcare, retail and accounting/finance. In terms of job level, more than one-third of hiring managers will be seeking out candidates to fill professional and technical positions, while 18 percent will be hiring for administrative and clerical positions and 10 percent will be targeting various levels of management.

Outsourcing Overseas
Outsourcing is a high profile issue for U.S. workers and businesses. While the vast majority of hiring managers say they do not anticipate outsourcing any job functions overseas in the first half of 2005, 15 percent say they are likely to do so.

Hiring by Region
The Midwest is tracking below the other regions in recruitment plans for 2005 with 14 percent of hiring managers expecting to add more than 100 workers. The Northeast is in the lead for this measurement at 22 percent followed by 19 percent in the West and 18 percent in the South. Twenty-six percent of hiring managers in the Midwest expect to recruit between 11 and 50 employees in the coming year compared to 27 percent in the West, 29 percent in the Northeast and 33 percent in the South.

JOB CHANGES AND WORKER SATISFACTION HIGHLIGHTS

"Workers are including a new job in their New Year's resolutions for 2005," said Ferguson. "This is not surprising when considering that almost half of workers say they do not look forward to coming to work each day and four-in-ten say they did not receive a raise in 2004. Encouraged by an improving economy and job outlook, 43 percent of workers are ready to move up to bigger and better opportunities next year with 24 percent planning to change jobs within the first six months of 2005."

Satisfaction with Key Job Factors
Twenty-three percent of workers say they are dissatisfied overall with their jobs. In evaluating individual job factors, 47 percent are unhappy with their compensation. The same amount also feels burdened by a heavy workload with 29 percent reporting they struggle to balance work with their personal life. In addition, 38 percent of workers are disappointed with the performance of their senior management, 36 percent report a lack of career advancement opportunities at their present employers and 34 percent think their employers have ineffective career development programs.

Job Changes By Region
More workers in the West will be hitting the pavement in 2005 in the hopes of securing a new job. Forty-six percent of workers in the West plan to change jobs in 2005, as compared to 42 percent of workers in the Northeast, South and Midwest. In the first quarter of 2005, 15 percent of workers in the West and 14 percent of workers in the Northeast plan to leave their current jobs compared to 12 percent of workers in the Midwest and 10 percent of workers in the South.

Job Changes by Select Industries and Job Functions
The hospitality industry stands to have the most active group of workers changing jobs next year with 59 percent planning to jump ship. Sales workers ranked second at 51 percent followed by retail workers at 47 percent. Forty-four percent of workers in accounting/finance will be counting on finding a new job in 2005 as will 39 percent of both healthcare and information technology workers. Comparing these industries and job functions, government workers are least likely to switch jobs in 2005 with 35 percent anticipating a job change in the new year.

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*comScore Media Metrix, October 2004. The CareerBuilder Network is a custom aggregation of CareerBuilder.com traffic as well as job search traffic to career centers CareerBuilder powers for partner sites such as Tribune Company, Gannett, Knight Ridder and others.

Survey Methodology

The new CareerBuilder.com survey, "The Pulse: A Quarterly Forecast on Hiring Trends and Job Changes," was conducted from November 22, 2004 to December 2, 2004 of more than 2,500 workers. To collect data for the survey, CareerBuilder.com commissioned SurveySite to use an e-mail methodology whereby individuals who are members of SurveySite Web Panel were randomly selected and approached by e-mail invitation to participate in the online survey. The results of this survey are accurate within +/-1.96 percentage points (19 times out of 20). Note: the sample of more than 2,500 included more than 1,000 hiring managers. The results for the hiring managers alone are accurate within +/- 3.04 percentage points (19 times out of 20).

About CareerBuilder.com
CareerBuilder.com is the nation's leading online job network with more than 15 million unique visitors and over 600,000 jobs. Owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), Tribune Company (NYSE: TRB), and Knight Ridder, Inc. (NYSE: KRI), the company offers a vast online and print network to help job seekers connect with employers. CareerBuilder.com powers the online career centers for more than 400 partners that reach national, local, industry, diversity and niche audiences. These include more than 130 newspapers and leading portals such as America Online and MSN. More than 30,000 of the nation's top employers take advantage of CareerBuilder.com's easy job postings, 10 million-plus resumes, comprehensive screening tools and more. Millions of job seekers visit the site every month to search for opportunities, sign up for automatic email job alerts, and get advice on job hunting and career management. For more information, visit www.careerbuilder.com

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