Hiring in the manufacturing and services sectors is easier now compared to last year, according to ISM’s Spring 2023 Semiannual Economic Forecast. The economic outlook survey included three special questions about hiring.
Two-thirds (67%) of respondents in both the manufacturing and services sectors reported having difficulty hiring in the past six months. This is lower than the percentages in May and December of last year, which were near or above 80%. Correspondingly, the percentages who said they have not had difficulty hiring went up to 26% for manufacturing (compared to 8% last May and 21% in December) and 22% for services (compared to 9% last May and 10% in December).
For those that reported hiring difficulties, the top way they dealt with the situation was to raise wages (manufacturing: 47%, services: 41%), followed by not hiring as many workers as they would have liked (manufacturing: 34%, services 33%).
The percentage of respondents who said they haven’t had any open positions (manufacturing: 2%, services: 5%) have been roughly the same for the past year. At the same time, 5% of manufacturing and 6% of services respondents said their companies had instituted hiring freezes, both up from 0% last year.
