NYT: American companies say they plan to hire. If they do as they say, the unemployment picture will brighten considerably.
In a quarterly survey of chief executives, the Business Roundtable found that 52 percent of companies planned to hire workers in the United States over the next six months, while just 11 percent said they expected to reduce employment.
Never before have so many chief executives said they planned to hire, or so few said they planned to cut payrolls. The survey has been taken every three months since late 2002.
The Business Roundtable includes chief executives of 200 major American companies. If most of them did add workers, that would almost certainly have a substantial effect on employment in the country. Two other broader surveys of companies are taken each month by the Institute for Supply Management. Its survey of manufacturers has been showing more companies planning to increase employment than reduce it since the fall of 2009, and indeed manufacturing employment rose in 2010 for the first full year since 1997, according to the Labor Department.
….In response to another question, 92 percent of the chief executives said they expected increases in sales for their companies, while none said they expected a decline. It was the first time that none of the executives thought sales would decline.
Full article here
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