Signs of Jobs Recovery Continue to Emerge

It’s not exactly gangbusters out there, but undeniable signs of a recovery in the jobs market continue to unearth themselves. For instance, various sources’ research into the matter indicates not only that large companies are planning to rebuild their workforces soon, but also that, among other things, anticipated job cuts in the tech sector through the first half of 2010 tapered considerably.

Fifty-four percent of large U.S. businesses that reduced staff in the past 12 months plan to rebuild their workforces to pre-recession levels within two years, according to a study released in mid-July by Accenture. ”The Accenture High Performance Workforce Study” found that among all U.S. companies surveyed, only 13 percent of executives say that they plan to reduce their employee base over the next 12 months.

The survey also confirms that companies are shifting their focus away from cost control and returning to growth. The percentage of U.S. companies focused primarily on cost control will decrease from 41 percent in mid-2009 to 18 percent in 2011, according to the study. And the percentage of U.S. companies focused primarily on investment in growth-oriented activities, such as hiring, will increase from 24 percent today to 37 percent within the next 12 months.

Notably, year-over-year, planned job cuts by tech firms through the first half of the year are down 70 percent, according to data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. The decline in tech-sector job cuts began in the second half of 2009.  After reaching 118,108 in the first six months of the year, the pace fell by more than half (52 percent) to 56,521. The six-month total in 2010 is 37 percent below the second-half total from 2009. Electronics firms registered the largest decline in technology job cuts; theirs dropped 95 percent, from 45,799 in the first half of 2009 to just 2,406 through June 2010.  Downsizing among computer firms fell 67 percent to 16,964 job cuts, down from 51,461 a year ago. Telecommunications firms have announced 16,005 job cuts in 2010, 23 percent fewer than the 20,848 cuts at the same point in 2009.

Even so, as job cuts slow and companies focus on growth, a shortage of high-quality skills may be cause for concern for many businesses. Only 15 percent of U.S. executives surveyed by Accenture describe the overall skill level of their workforces as industry-leading. Companies’ sales and customer service workforces, for instance, are the employee groups identified as most important by executives surveyed; many of the executives, however, report significant skills challenges in both of these critical areas. Among those executives who rate sales or customer service as one of their organization’s most important workforces, only 23 percent report that their sales forces perform at a high level, and 34 percent say the same about their customer service workers. When asked why, about one-quarter (27 percent) of respondents say their companies lack the skills required of their sales workforce. Similarly, 25 percent indicate a significant proportion of skills in their customer service organizations are out of date.

Posted by RecruitingTrends.com on July 28, 2010. Filed under Data Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry