Chief executives of the nation's largest companies say they are finally ready to begin hiring again.
For the first time in at least a year and a half, more executives plan to increase employment in the US over the next six months than plan to cut jobs, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group. Thirty-three percent of the executives said they would add jobs, up from just 12 percent in October, while 22 percent said they would reduce the number of employees.
"CEOs believe that the US economy is on course for continued steady improvement," said Henry McKinnell, chairman of the Roundtable and chief executive of Pfizer, the drug company.
A separate survey of midlevel managers in the service sector and a Federal Reserve report on regional economic conditions, both released Wednesday, suggested that employment had continued to grow slowly in recent weeks.
McKinnell said that he still did not expect job growth this year to reach the levels of past recoveries, largely because companies have become more efficient and can produce more goods with fewer hands. Asked whether he expected the economy to add 200,000 to 300,000 jobs a month, as it did through parts of the 1980s and 1990s, McKinnell said, "We're not quite that bullish at this point."
He added: "But we're headed in that direction."
The survey of purchasing managers at service companies suggested that economic growth had remained healthy but that companies were still not adding large numbers of workers. The Institute of Supply Management's index of economic activity in the service sector fell to 60.8 in February, from 65.7 in January. The employment index for the sector dropped slightly, to 52.7 from 53.4.
A reading above 50 suggests growth.
"February was a month of growth, but just not the same pace as we had seen in the month of January," said Drew Matus, an economist at Lehman Brothers. "This is still a strong number."
The Fed, in its regular review of regional economies, known as the beige book, said that employment grew slowly in January and February and that salaries "increased slightly." The economy continued to grow across the country and appeared to be accelerating in the West, the Southwest and New York state, according to the report.
The Fed also said that retail prices were stable or rising slowly, while prices for industrial items like iron ore have increased more rapidly. Most investors expect inflation to remain low in the coming months and the Fed to wait until the summer to raise interest rates.
The new signs of the economy's continued growth helped lift the dollar to a three-month high against the euro. The Standard & Poor 500-stock index rose slightly, closing at 1,151.03, up 1.93 points.
The economic growth, however, has done relatively little to improve the labor market. Between July of last year and January, even as the economy was growing at a healthy pace, it added just 57,000 jobs a month, far too few to keep up with population growth.
Economists expect the Labor Department to report Friday that around 125,000 to 150,000 jobs were created in February, which would be the biggest gain since late 2000.
The outsourcing of American jobs to lower-wage countries has become a hot topic in the presidential campaign and the media, but most economists say that the productivity gains are the main cause of the weak job growth.
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