Tarrant Business

Employers feeling more optimistic about economy, jobs in 4th quarter, survey says

Heading into the fourth quarter, employers are “feeling more optimistic” about the economy and job market, but the majority plans to keep staff levels the same for the rest of the year, CareerBuilder and USA Today said Wednesday in their Q4 Job Forecast.

 

Additionally, more employers who cut pay or laid people off in the last year “are reporting that they have begun to restore compensation levels and rehire employees,” said Matt Ferguson, CareerBuilder’s chief executive.

“While these are positive indicators, the pace of hiring will remain restrained,” Ferguson said. “It will take time to rebuild the confidence needed in the nation’s economy to trigger more robust recruitment programs.”

 

Regionally, employers in the South were more optimistic than employers elsewhere in the country.

 

Harris Interactive conducted the survey of more than 2,900 hiring managers and HR pros from Aug. 20 to Sept. 9.

 

Eighteen percent of employers said they increased their number of fulltime employees in the third quarter, unchanged from the second quarter. Fifteen percent of employers reported declines in staff levels, compared to 17 percent in the second quarter. Sixty five percent of employers reported no change in their number of fulltime employees.

 

For the fourth quarter, 17 percent of employers said they expected top add fulltime employees, 10 percent expected a decrease, and 68 percent expected no change. “Expectations for hiring...are falling in line with the previous two quarters, while planned staff reductions continue to trend down,” CareerBuilder and USA Today said.

 

Twenty seven percent of employers reported they laid off workers in one area, but hired in another, over the last year. The areas most likely to get new hires were “linked to revenue,” including technology, sales, customer service, and R&D, the survey said.

 

Twenty six percent of employers who laid employees off in the last 12 months said their companies are planning to bring back some employees they let go.

 

Of those rehiring workers:

 

* 23 percent said they’d started making job offers in the third quarter.

* 19 percent expected that to happen in the fourth quarter.

* 21 percent said they expected to start bringing back laid-off employees in the first quarter next year.

* 15 percent said they’ll wait until the second quarter of 2010.

“Others are holding off until the latter half of 2010 and beyond,” CareerBuilder and USA Today said.

 

Eighteen percent of employers surveyed said they’d cut pay in the last 12 months.

 

Of those:

 

* Five percent said they restored pay to previous levels in the third quarter.

* Twelve percent said they planned to do that in the fourth quarter.

* 17 percent said they expected pay to return to previous levels in the first quarter next year.

* 7 percent predicted pay would return in the second half of 2010.

* One in 10 said their companies don’t plan to restore pay to previous levels until 2011 or 2012.

* 41 percent said they aren’t sure.

 

By region, “benefitting from growth in healthcare, education and energy, the South continues to produce more job opportunities,” CareerBuilder and USA Today said.

 

Nineteen percent of hiring managers in the South said they expect to increase their fulltime headcount in the fourth quarter, compared to 17 percent in the Northeast, 15 percent in the Midwest, and 14 percent in the West.

 

As for compensation, 51 percent of employers expected no change for fulltime employees in the fourth quarter. Twenty six percent expected to raise pay between 1 and 3 percent, 12 percent expected raises of 4-10 percent, 2 percent expected to raise pay 11 percent or more, 6 percent said they planned to cut pay, and 4 percent said their companies were undecided.

 

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram

Super Bowl committee sets contracting workshop for Fort Worth

FORT WORTH -- A workshop to help businesses owned by women or minorities get involved in the 2011 Super Bowl is scheduled from 2 to 5 p.m. Oct. 27 at the Round Up Inn in the Amon G. Carter Jr. Exhibit Hall, 3401 Lancaster Ave.

The workshop, sponsored by the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee, is designed to provide information to business owners who plan to bid on contracts related to the Super Bowl, which will be at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington in February 2011.

The National Football League says that 130 minority- and women-owned businesses were awarded roughly $4 million in contracts related to last year’s Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla.

"This is a great opportunity for those minority- and women-owned businesses interested in bidding on Super Bowl-related contracts to learn about the process," Robbie Douglas, the Host Committee’s director of business development, said in a news release.

"As we've said before, the Host Committee's number one goal is to ensure that everyone in the North Texas business community knows about the Emerging Business Program. "We can’t promise anyone a contract, but we can work to ensure that information saturates North Texas and every North Texas business understands how to participate.

"This is a great way to open that dialogue.”

The Fort Worth workshop, titled “The Game Plan,” will focus on:

• Background information and an NFL overview of the Emerging Business Program.
• Presentations by co-chairs of the Emerging Business Program.
• An overview of Super Bowl XLV.
• An overview of the process for North Texas.
• A presentation from certification agencies.

Workshops will also be held in Arlington and Dallas at later dates. To register, or for more information about the program, go to northtexassuperbowl.com/emergingbusiness.

Tailgating: Rickey C. Cooper

Tail-Gating: New Networking Tool In Arlington, Texas on obtaining employment.  I have come to realize that if you take advantage of each Dallas Cowboys Home Game and get out there and Tail-Gate it's a wonderful opportunity to discuss your employment situation.  It is now 15:55:56 Monday 09/28/2009 and I am in the process of attending this function that is taking place as I type.  People are very friendly and will be more than happy to have a conversation about day to day life events.  But don't forget this is a Dallas Cowboys Football Game and they do not want to be hampered with problems.  So put on your Cowboys Gear and get out to the Stadium today in which they play tonight here with Kickoff @ 19:30 sharp.  Drive Careful and God Bless. Regards, Rickey C. Cooper rccooper43@yahoo.com

Who's recruiting on Twitter?

Here's a list of companies that recruit on Twitter, in 140 characters or less.

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram  

Tarrant County felony/misdemeanor job fair comes off on schedule

Here's Saturday's story about the second annual Felony and/or Misdemeanor Friendly Community Career Fair, which went off as scheduled Friday at Tarrant County College South.

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram

(Photo: Jobseekers who attended Friday's fair. Courtesy of Victor Pratt, criminalbackgroundjobhelp.com)

Study finds 46 percent of older, lower-income jobless Americans risk losing their homes

A new study of low-income unemployed older workers finds 46 percent of them need to find jobs, or they’ll lose their homes or apartments. Forty nine percent have been looking for work for more than a year, the study – released Tuesday - found.

“The perfect storm – a recessed economy, increased competition for jobs, and age-related employment barriers – has created a crisis for America’s older low-income workers,” Experience Works, a leading national non-profit providing training and employment opportunities for older workers, said. Experience Works conducted the study.

The study included responses from more than 2,000 low-income, unemployed workers ages 55 and older. Some of its findings:

 

* In July 2009, there were two million unemployed workers age 55 plus; the jobless rate for this group was highest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began figuring data by age in 1948.

 

* Many of these workers “did not plan to be looking for work in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.” A major life event forced the job search, the study said. Those events included being laid off (20 percent of respondents), death of a spouse (16 percent), and large medical bills (15 percent).

 

* 38 percent of older workers surveyed “had retired, but they are going back to work and many have no end in sight for their working years.”

 

* Ninety percent of survey respondents age 76 and older plan to continue working in the next five years.

 

* On average, “these 55 plus unemployed workers have been on the job search an estimated 52 weeks.”

 

* Older workers say the poor economy and age related barriers – including lack of the necessary training – “are the most significant challenges they face to finding employment.”

 

* Nearly three-fourths of older workers surveyed (73 percent) “strongly agree or somewhat agree that their age makes it difficult for them to compete for jobs with younger workers.”

 

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram

MBA programs boost fall classes, as more people take break to retool

Here's today's story on what's happening with area MBA programs.

And here's some scoop on the University of Texas at Dallas' MBA program, which we missed: Lisa Shatz, director of the full-time MBA program, says enrollment is up 25 percent for the fall class, and applications were up more than 50 percent.

Beyond the broader factors (economy) driving graduate enrollments up, Shatz attributes UT-Dallas' increase in applications to the School of Management's No. 49 ranking behind No. 47 SMU in the U.S. News & World Report best business schools ratings, and the school's total program cost of less than $25,000.

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram

Fort Worth Career Search Network adds IT group in Southlake

The Fort Worth Career Search Network has added an IT networking group to its growing list of branches.

The IT Focus Group meets 9 a.m. Tuesdays at the  Cornerstone Bible Church, 545 Nolen Drive in Southlake. Foster Williams, a longtime recruiter and one of the Career Search Network's founders, expects the IT group to be "quite sizeable," with a "national" and perhaps "global presence."

The group is open to jobseekers and people in IT who "would like to help the unemployed obtain employment," Williams said in a recent email blast.

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram 

Fort Worth-Arlington area adds 4,200 jobs in August

Texas lost 62,200 jobs in August, more people continued to enter the workforce, and the state's jobless rate inched up to 8 percent, the Texas Workforce Commission said Friday.

 

Education and health services added 5,200 jobs and financial sector added 600 jobs. Beyond that, “the employment situation in most industries was tough in August,” said Andres Alcantar, a TWC commissioner.

 

Leisure and hospitality dropped 12,900 jobs, construction, 11,700, and manufacturing, 10,900.

 

The seasonally adjusted Texas jobless rate - the state's highest in 22 years - rose from 7.9 percent a month ago and 5 percent a year ago, and was still well below the national 9.7 percent jobless rate. The total civilian labor force rose by 7,800, staying above 12 million.

 

In the Fort Worth-Arlington area:

 

The jobless rate stayed the same at 8.3 percent in August compared to July, and was up from 5.2 percent a year ago. Metro area figures are not seasonally adjusted.

 

Employers added 4,200 non-agricultural jobs compared to July. Except for information, which lost 200 jobs, none of the Workforce Commission’s other nine industry categories lost jobs.

 

Manufacturing added 2,000; trade, transportation and utilities, 300; professional and business services, 900; education and health services, 500; leisure and hospitality, 100; and government, 600.

 

Unchanged were mining, logging and construction; financial; and other services.

 

The civilian labor force dropped to 1.075 million from 1.078 million.

 

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram

Real World: Rickey C. Cooper

Real World, Yes this is the real world and I have had plenty of time to reflect this is real.  I can inform my readers that I am ready and available to return to work.  This is especially difficult on me because I have been actively employed for the past 24 years and the bread winner of the household.  I keep hope alive that this terrible job market will turnaround for the better but unemployment continues to shine daily in my life.  I am writing today to bring about comfort within myself and yours to serve as a strengthen sermon that you are not in this alone.  I will continue to remain strong and keep the faith within the lord, I am confident Jesus will see me and you through this.  Keep posting jobs on-line and networking with anyone that has influence to gain employment.  Until next time this is Rickey C. Cooper and remember to exercise for the brain. God Bless!