Moderate Job Creation of Longer Duration Ahead - Kelly Services Advance Comment on Unemployment Rate Announcement
TROY, Mich., Jan. 7 -- The following commentary by Carl Camden, president of global staffing company Kelly Services, Inc., is offered in advance of the December unemployment rate announcement due Friday from the U.S. Department of Labor. The November unemployment rate was 5.9 percent, and the economy gained a reported 57,000 jobs that month.
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“Recent employment numbers suggest that we have entered a sustained period of job growth. Job creation numbers in the coming months probably won’t light up the scoreboard as intensely as in past recoveries, though. Instead, we expect to see moderate, steady gains of a longer duration than previous rebounds. This sturdier footing in job creation will help reduce the threat of inflation.
“The average work week steadily lengthened during 2003, with companies getting more productivity out of fewer workers. Alongside this trend, we saw a steady increase in the number of hours per job assignment at Kelly Services. These trends inevitably lead to new periods of job creation, which we are seeing now, where the dam is breaking and companies need to hire more workers to keep up with orders for their goods and services.
“We shouldn’t put too much weight into the monthly fluctuation of the unemployment rate itself, particularly at this time of year, which is a noisy period for job data, given holiday hiring and other seasonal adjustments. In fact, the unemployment rate may actually rise during this early stage of job- creation as the amount of available jobs will lag the number of newly encouraged people reentering the job market. The unemployment rate has become more of a psychological number that is less meaningful than trends in job creation.
“Light industrial staffing has historically been at the front of the economic recovery parade, and this segment continues to show some improvement for us. We also are now seeing growing strength in office and clerical staffing and among our professional and technical staffing services.”
About Kelly Services
Kelly Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: KELYA, KELYB) is a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Troy, Mich., offering human resources solutions that include temporary services, staff leasing, outsourcing, vendor on-site and full-time placement. With more than 2,400 company owned and operated offices in 26 countries, Kelly provides to its customers nearly 700,000 employees annually, with skills including office services, accounting, engineering, information technology, law, science, marketing, light industrial, education, health care and home care. Sales in 2002 were $4.1 billion. Visit www.kellyservices.com .
SOURCE Kelly Services, Inc.
CONTACT: Bob Doetsch of Kelly Services, +1-248-244-5362
Web site: http://www.kellyservices.com
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