"It's good news for employees who are looking for jobs or . . . to make career moves because the demand is there," said Robert Katz, Manpower of Utah president. "Employers are moving forward with their hiring plans and expect the economy to continue at a strong pace. The question is going to be: 'Where are the employees going to come from?' ”
Of the companies surveyed, 62 percent expected no change in hiring rates. Only 7 percent planned to reduce employment.
Utah's job growth rate - 4.8 percent for the year that ended Jan. 31 - is among the nation's three fastest. Still, employers' hiring expectations in Utah were consistent with those nationally, according to Manpower, a global staffing company based in Milwaukee. Thirty percent of U.S. employers plan to increase staffing, 58 percent expect no change and 6 percent plan to reduce hiring.
Katz said Utah employers probably are adding staff in greater numbers than their national counterparts. The survey does not ask respondents how many people they plan to hire. Regionally, the employment outlook was strongest in the West and weakest in the Northeast and Midwest.
The report marks the ninth-straight quarter that more than 20 percent of the 16,000 companies surveyed by Manpower said they plan to add staff. Expectations were more optimistic than in the first quarter of this year when 23 percent expected to increase hiring.
Hiring plans in seven of 10 industries covered by the survey probably will match first-quarter levels, Manpower reported. Hiring prospects in the mining industry are expected to jump ''substantially'' over the next three months, with 37 percent of employers seeing an increase, Manpower said. Public administration was the one area where expectations dipped.
Construction firms had the highest expectations, with 43 percent looking to increase staffing and only 3 percent planning reductions. Construction hiring surged as unusually warm weather in January enabled builders to work on projects. The U.S. added 55,000 construction jobs in January and 41,000 in February, according to Labor Department statistics. A total of 413,000 jobs have been created in the year's first two months.
Salt Lake City-based Big-D Construction Corp., which currently employs 525 workers, has hired 50 new employees in the past 40 days, said president and chief executive Rob Moore. He plans to add 50 more in the next year - if he can find enough skilled craftsmen and laborers.
"Utah is enjoying a great economy right now. Because of that, there are not a lot of available construction workers," Moore said. "We have a quality shortage in the Utah market."
Rising demand for labor nationally is pushing up some wages and salaries. Average wages were up 3.5 percent in February from the same month a year earlier, the biggest 12-month increase since September 2001, the Labor Department reported.
Katz said increasing wages will help ease the labor shortage in Utah.
"As we [add] some higher-paying jobs, we'll start seeing an influx of people moving here."
rwinters@sltrib.com
---
Bloomberg News contributed to this article.
