Spotlight for Career Services Professionals
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Industry hiring plans provide more evidence of the strength of the current college job market. Of the 13 industries in which employers provided their individual hiring numbers in the Job Outlook 2019 Spring Update survey, just one is reporting a decrease.

This is in contrast to last year, when nearly half of the 15 industries reporting their plans in the Job Outlook 2018 Spring Update survey were showing overall hiring decreases.

This year, the industry analysis is much improved. Leading the way are miscellaneous professional services employers; they expect to increase their hiring by more than 30 percent this year. Meanwhile, those in motor vehicle manufacturing and accounting services anticipate hiring to grow by more than 20 percent. (See Figure 1.)

Employers in the wholesale trade industry are showing that their hires will be reduced by 7.6 percent for the Class of 2019, although the data from employers in this industry are limited.

Contributing to the positive news is the fact that the two industries driving last year’s overall decrease—retail trade and insurance—appear to have recovered. Retail trade employers are now indicating a 9 percent increase compared to their plan for a drop in hiring of 33 percent last year.

Insurance firms that fall into the overall employment sector of finance, insurance, and real estate reveal a hiring increase of 25.1 percent this year compared to last year’s stated decrease of 42 percent. However, there are two respondents in the sector—not insurance companies—that are reducing their hiring numbers this year. This is keeping hiring within the industry flat; without these respondents, hiring within the sector would increase by almost 9 percent.

The Job Outlook 2019 Spring Update survey was conducted from February 27 – March 29, 2019; the survey was sent to 921 NACE employer members; 155, or 16.8 percent responded. The survey updates hiring projections for the Class of 2019; those projections were collected from NACE employer members from August 1 – October 8, 2018, and reported in the Job Outlook 2019 survey, published in November 2018. The Job Outlook 2019 Spring Update report is available free to members through MyNACE.