Who, Us Hire?

Jobs may continue to be hard to find in 2012, with just shy of a quarter of companies planning to add new positions, a CareerBuilder survey finds.

Image: andrea crisante / Shutterstock

Fewer than one quarter of hiring managers plan to take on new employees in 2012, although small businesses are more inclined to hire in 2012 versus last year, a new hiring survey forecast from job site CareerBuilder finds.

Of the more than 3,000 human resource and hiring professionals surveyed, 23 percent said they’ll add full-time, permanent staff in 2012, down a notch from the 24 percent who said they planned to do so in 2011, according to CareerBuilder’s 2012 U.S. Job Forecast released today.

Seven percent expect to slash head count in 2012, the same as for 2011, and an improvement from 9 percent for 2010. Fifty-nine percent anticipate no change in their staff levels, while 11 percent reported being unsure.

If there was a bright note, it was with small businesses, which had more swagger for next year when it came to hiring new employees and retaining those already on staff. Among businesses with 50 or fewer employees, 16 percent plan to add staff, an increase from 15 percent that said the same last year. For businesses with up to 250 employees, 20 percent planned to add full-time, permanent staff, up from 19 percent last year. For those with 500 or fewer employees, 21 percent expected to add more in 2012, which was the same as last year, but those reducing head count fell from 6 percent to 4 percent.

Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder, said in the report on the survey that employers tend to be more conservative in their predictions than they are in actual hiring and that “barring any major economic upsets" the company expects 2012 to bring a better hiring picture than 2011, especially in the second half.

“Many companies have been operating lean and have already pushed productivity limits,” he said.

In some cases, those productivity limits have pushed staffers right out the door: One third (34 percent) of human resource managers reported that voluntary turnover at their organizations rose in 2011, with employers citing the desire for higher compensation and feeling overworked as the top two reasons employees gave for resigning. Thirty percent of employers said they lost top performers to other organizations in 2011, and 43 percent stated they are worried that top talent may flee next year.

Looking ahead to 2012, sales staffers are expected to be the most likely to see pay increases, with 24 percent of managers citing raises for that category. Coming in second was information technology staffers at 20 percent.

The bright spots for workers, geographically: The West is seen as most likely to hire (24 percent), followed by the South and Midwest (both 23 percent). Coming in last was the Northeast, where 21 percent of companies planned to add jobs.

More companies are seeking more diverse employees with 20 percent targeting Latino, black, and female applicants and 44 percent intending to pick up new bilingual employees.