"As companies begin to shift their focus from cost containment to growth, they are evaluating their existing talent pool and filling any gaps with top performers that are essential in driving their businesses forward," said Eric Gilpin, President of CareerBuilder’s Recruiter Business Unit. “This is evident by the gains in both expected utilization of staffing and recruiting firms across temporary and permanent placements through the end of 2009."
Permanent and Temporary Hiring
For the second quarter in a row, a higher percentage of hiring managers report that they expect to utilize a staffing firm to fill open positions. Nearly fifteen percent of hiring managers expect to utilize a staffing firm in the 4th quarter, compared to only 13 percent in the 3rd quarter.
More than seven percent of hiring managers and HR professionals expect to utilize a staffing firm to help fill temporary or contract positions in the upcoming quarter, up slightly from six percent last quarter. Hiring managers at large organizations are most likely to utilize a staffing firm to help with hiring temporary and contract employees, with nearly 10 percent of hiring managers at organizations with more than 500 employees saying they will leverage these resources during the 4th quarter.
Just over 10 percent of hiring managers expected to use a staffing or recruiting firm to help them search for permanent employees in the 4th quarter, compared to only 9 percent during the 3rd quarter. Similar to temporary and contract staffing expectations, hiring managers at companies between 20 and 99 employees showed the largest gain, increasing by nearly 1.5 percentage points compared to last quarter.
Hiring By Industry
Hiring managers in the office/clerical sector expect their temporary hiring needs to improve the most, with 2.1 percent of those surveyed reporting they expect to hire a temporary office/clerical position through a staffing firm. This is compared to 1.3 percent one quarter ago, a gain of nearly a full percentage point. However, temporary positions in the technology sector remain the most common positions hiring managers expect to hire through staffing firms, with 2.4 percent of human resource professionals expecting to fill an open position this way, up from 1.9 percent last quarter.
However, hiring managers expect to increase their hiring of full-time positions through staffing firms much more slowly. Only two of the sectors measured in the study showed an expectation for growth in the 4th quarter compared to the prior quarter. Hiring managers increased their expectation to hire full-time employees in the healthcare and office/clerical spaces, while expectations for industrial, professional and technology-related full-time placements remained essentially unchanged. Expectations improved the most in the healthcare sector, with 2.5 percent of hiring managers reporting an expectation of filling a full-time position through a staffing firm, up from 1.7 percent one quarter ago.
Utilization by Job Seekers
As job seekers look to cover every option for the job search process, 21 percent say they plan to use a staffing or recruiting firm as part of their search this quarter, on par with last quarter. Of those not currently using a staffing firm, more than half indicate they would if they were still searching three months from now.
Job candidates in the technical, IT and scientific sector continue to be most open to utilizing a staffing firm in their job search, with 33 percent indicating they would consider staffing as part of their search strategy. On the other hand, industrial employees seem most hesitant regarding the use of a staffing firm, with 15 percent saying they are not willing to consider working with a staffing firm as part of their search.
Time Spent In Job Search Varies By Industry
Active job seekers report having spent more than four months in their current job search on average and the median job seeker started to search roughly 120 days (just over four months) ago, according to the Harris Interactive® survey participants. Of those included in the study, light industrial and office clerical job candidates report the shortest job searches, with a median job search of 69 and 90 days respectively. The time taken in the job search increased for professional and technical positions, where the median search reported was 144 and 183, respectively.
This executive summary provides an overview of the staffing outlook for the third quarter of 2009. Additional information is available through your CareerBuilder account representative, or by request at RBUStaffing@CareerBuilder.com.
Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder and USA TODAY among 5,795 hiring managers and human resource professionals (employed full-time; not self-employed; with at least significant involvement in hiring decisions); and 9,592 U.S. employees (actively or passively looking for a job, not self-employed or retired) ages 18 and over.
CareerBuilder partnered with the Inavero Institute (www.inavero.com) to provide analysis and help guide the study design and implementation.
The analysis utilizes two waves of the survey, fielded between August 20 and September 9 (3,128 employers and 4,721 job seekers), and between May 20 and June 7, 2008 (2,667 employers and 4,871 job seekers).
With a pure probability sample of 2,667 and 4,871 (the lower of each of the waves), one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 2.0 percentage points and +/- 1.5 percentage points, respectively. 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 U.S. with more than 23 million unique visitors, 1 million jobs and 31 million resumes. CareerBuilder works with the world’s top employers, providing resources for everything from employment branding and data analysis. More than 9,000 Web sites, 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 U.S., Europe, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit www.careerbuilder.com
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