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Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2004

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  Overall, 28 percent of all businesses surveyed said they plan to add staff in the fourth quarter, compared with 7 percent that expect to reduce their payrolls, the survey said. Sixty percent of employers said they plan no changes in their staffing levels, and 5 percent said they were not sure.

"We are seeing that companies continue to have an appetite to hire people," said Jeff Joerres, chairman and chief executive officer of Manpower, a global staffing company based in the Milwaukee suburb of Glendale.

The fourth-quarter outlook is a considerable improvement from a year ago, when the net percentage of companies anticipating increased hiring was half of that in the current survey.

Still, the latest survey found results similar to the previous two quarters this year, when seasonally adjusted.

"There will be hiring. And it will be measured and it will be steady," Joerres said. "It will be good, just not accelerating."

About 29 percent of the businesses surveyed in the durable-goods manufacturing sector said they expect to add jobs in the last three months of the year, and 27 percent making nondurable goods said the same.

Durable goods are products that are expected to have a long life, such as furniture and appliances. Nondurable goods are used in a short period of time, such as cosmetics.

"We've not seen manufacturing have that kind of optimism in several years now," Joerres said.

Economists say that is important, as the manufacturing sector drives the economy and has jobs that pay well.

Ernie Goss, an economics professor at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., said he expects the large federal deficit to lead to a weaker dollar, which will reduce imports and boost products made in the United States.

"The dollar should weaken some more," he said. "That should help jobs in manufacturing."

Recent government reports show U.S. companies added 144,000 jobs in August, the most since May.

But economists say the economic recovery will take time and depend on several factors: the November presidential election, the war in Iraq, oil prices and interest rates.

They also said spiking health care costs have left employers reluctant to take on new workers.

"There's a whole bunch of uncertainties, and uncertainty is very bad for economic growth," said Dawn McLaren, a research economist at Arizona State University's business school.

Hiring prospects in the four U.S. regions - the Midwest, Northeast, West and South - remain the same as in the previous quarter, the Manpower survey says. Prospects are the strongest in the West and the weakest in the Northeast.

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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