Employment prospects in the area of Chicago became weakened during the fourth quarter. It is believed that the weakening of employment prospects was caused by a number of different concerns on the economy as well as the presidential elections, which will be taking place in November of this year. For the last three months of the year, only a total of 18 percent of employers in the Chicago area said that they would be hiring more employees in the near future while a total of 11 percent of employers said they would be making cuts. With the percentage of job cuts being made, the total net job gain would only be a mere 7 percent, which is definitely a decline. Even though employment prospects are not nearly as good as they could have been, the outlook is still better than it was just a year ago. Approximately one year ago, the net job gain was at a measly 1 percent.

A large number of employers in the United States took the survey and admitted that they did not really see any type of change in their hiring plans for the fourth quarter at all. Many employers are either sticking with the employees that they already have or are making cuts because there is not enough work or funds to go around. The President of the Americas for Manpower, Jonas Prising, has said, “It’s nice to see it continue to hold steady … but it is still a long way to go to reflecting a robust and healthy labor market.”

A large number of employers are still very cautious about expanding the number of employers because they are not sure what to expect in the near future, especially since the Europe debt crisis is currently going on and could cause the economy to become weak again in the United States. Many employers are also worried about the presidential elections because once they are over; spending cuts tend to take place. Prising said, “They’ll have to have good business reasons to hire or else they’ll just stay on the sidelines.” The Manpower Survey also provided insight on the different job categories and the fact that only one of those categories, the education and health services category, had a better hiring outlook for the fourth quarter than it did from the previous quarter. Both the construction sector and manufacturing sector saw a decline of available jobs. The Manpower Survey in the United States has been going on for the past five decades and the information from the survey comes from a series of interviews with thousands of employers.