Hiring Plans of Major Employers Take Turn for the Worse

Hiring plans of major Ventura County employers have turned sharply downward, reversing a bullish trend that developed earlier this year in the afterglow of the presidential election.

The new findings, reported in the quarterly Employment Outlook Survey of Manpower Inc., show that 37% of the county’s employers expect to reduce their payrolls this summer while only 13% plan expanded hiring.

This contrasts with the second quarter, when fully half of the county’s businesses were planning to enlarge their work forces and only 7% expected cutbacks.

The projections for July through September are even more pessimistic than those of a year ago, when 10% of Ventura County’s employers intended to add workers and only 14% predicted cutbacks.

By the fall, Ventura County employers expect reduced payrolls in such fields as construction, non-durable goods manufacturing, transportation, public utilities and service industries such as hotels and hospitals.

One field where increased hiring is expected is education. Mixed readings are given in durable goods manufacturing and the wholesale and retail fields. Employers who predicted neither new hiring nor layoffs said they expected no change or were uncertain about their plans.

“The latest results came as a total surprise,” said Gary Gluntz, manager of the temporary help firm’s Los Angeles northwest area, which includes Ventura County. “We found that business people throughout the county are reflecting an indecision that they perceive in Washington,” he said. “One of the key matters they want resolved, for instance, is the Administration’s health care program.” The program could have a direct impact on employee costs and could therefore affect hiring plans, he noted.

Gluntz said most of the county’s large companies and government agencies were queried in the survey. The study does not track agricultural hiring because of its seasonal nature, Gluntz said.

Nationally, Manpower found little change from second-quarter projections, with 25% planning staff increases and 8% expecting cutbacks.

“It’s extremely difficult to predict what our fourth-quarter survey in Ventura County will find,” Gluntz said. “What’s certain is that the euphoria we saw early in the year is gone. Everybody’s looking to Washington for signals.”