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Employers Report Impact of Economic Stimulus Funding on Hiring in New CareerBuilder Survey

CHICAGO - November 10, 2009 - More than 3,100 private and public sector hiring managers weighed in on the effect of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on their business performance. Twenty-three percent of all employers reported that their organization experienced an increase in business in the third quarter tied to the economic stimulus program while 77 percent did not. Both employers who received funding and those who did not receive funding reported they have added employees this year as a result of the economic stimulus program. The survey was conducted nationwide across industries.


Six percent of respondents reported that their organizations received direct funding from the economic stimulus program. Of these employers, more than one-third (36 percent) plan to recruit new employees in the fourth quarter. Forty-two percent reported they have already hired new employees this year as a result of receiving funding. Top areas for hiring included:

  • Technology - 22 percent

  • Research/Development - 18 percent

  • Sales and Marketing - 12 percent

  • Customer Service - 12 percent

  • Legal - 9 percent

  • Human Resources - 9 percent

  • Accounting/Finance - 8 percent

  • Business Development - 7 percent

Of those who didn’t receive funding from the economic stimulus program, 14 percent reported that their organizations still benefitted in terms of increased business. Twenty percent of these employers said they hired new employees this year as a result of the increased business and 19 percent plan to add headcount in the fourth quarter.

Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive© on behalf of CareerBuilder among 3,163 hiring managers and human resource professionals (employed full-time; not self-employed; government and non-government; with at least significant involvement in hiring decisions) ages 18 and over between August 20 and September 9, 2009 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions). With a pure probability sample of 3,163 one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.74 percentage points. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

About CareerBuilder®
CareerBuilder is the global leader in human capital solutions, helping companies target and attract their most important asset - their people. Its online career site, CareerBuilder.com®, is the largest in the United States with more than 23 million unique visitors, 1 million jobs and 32 million resumes. CareerBuilder works with the world’s top employers, providing resources for everything from recruitment to employment branding and data analysis. More than 9,000 websites, including 140 newspapers and broadband portals such as MSN and AOL, feature CareerBuilder’s proprietary job search technology on their career sites. Owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), Tribune Company, The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), CareerBuilder and its subsidiaries operate in the United States, Europe, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit www.careerbuilder.com.

CareerBuilder Media Contact
For all media inquiries and interview requests, contact:

Jennifer Grasz
(P) 773-527-1164
(E) jennifer.grasz@careerbuilder.com