Outside of the government’s report, signs of employer confidence were still evident. Bill Ravenscroft, a senior vice president at the staffing firm Adecco, pointed to the growing willingness to convert temporary workers into full-time staff members. The high rate of conversion shows there is little concern that layoffs will be needed down the road, he said.
With job postings outpacing applicants, Adecco has started to offer daily pay to lure more people into the pool of potential workers. Many job seekers can’t wait two weeks for the paychecks, Mr. Ravenscroft said. Now, “if you log eight hours that day, you get paid for it.”
Surveys reflect the optimism. Of the 681 employers surveyed last month by Vistage, an association of small-business owners and executives, nearly 60 percent said they planned to increase their total staff over the next 12 months. That share is down from last year, said Joe Galvin, Vistage’s chief research officer, but is still strong.
Sanford Health’s weight-loss and lifestyle program, Profile, has been on a hiring binge, said Nate Malloy, Profile’s chief executive. He said he expected 100 new locations, many of them franchises, to open this year. “We’re adding around 50 to 100 employees a month” across locations, he said. Most are health coaches, with starting wages of $15 to $20 an hour.
Ace Hardware, a cooperative of independently owned and operated hardware stores, expects an additional 160 stores will open this year, creating 2,500 jobs, said Kane Calamari, the company’s personnel chief.
As has been the case throughout the recovery, job opportunities can vary widely by region. Hard-pressed rural areas have experienced the slowest growth in employment, yet residents are often unable or unwilling to abandon their homes and move to other areas.
The job growth reflected in the monthly report is spread relatively evenly across large urban areas, but the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project found that “rural counties — the majority of which were already struggling — seem to be increasingly left behind with employment barely growing over the last five years.”
Matt Phillips contributed reporting.
