HOUSTON – Houston-area employers are planning to hire more workers over the next few months, an international job placement agency said Monday.
The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey is based on interviews with 18,000 employers located in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
The exact results are not scheduled to be released until Tuesday, but the head of the company’s Houston division, Doug Carr, told 11 News many more companies responded positively when asked whether they planned to hire more workers in the second quarter of 2011.
"Employers are seeing that it’s not just a blip," Carr said. "That it’s a sustained growth."
Carr said the most Houston-area job openings are in finance, hospitality and, surprisingly, manufacturing.
"What we are seeing, is that along with those jobs that are being created, that the pace of the hiring—making the decision to bring the individuals on—is a slower pace than what it was going into the recession," Carr said.
That means that while there may be more jobs, employers can afford to be more selective. With the national unemployment rate dropping last month to 8.9 percent—its lowest level in nearly two years—there seems to be a new sense of cautious optimism at job fairs.
At the Sheraton North Hotel on John F. Kennedy Boulevard, HoustonHires brought together more than a dozen employers on Monday.
"I’m seeing that almost everywhere I turn they say that they’re hiring," said Antoine Leggett, who’s been unemployed for several weeks.
"The future’s looking pretty good right now," job seeker Mauricio Aviles said.
But Trina Thornton is still struggling to find a job after being laid off by an energy company four months ago.
"I’m applying for jobs," Thornton said. "I’m trying to network, but nothing really comes out of it."
Still, Thornton’s hopeful that employers will start hiring. "I believe it," she said. "And hopefully I’ll hear from somebody soon!"
