In a few weeks, many of you plugging along through busy season will decide to call those incessant recruiters back and test the job market. Last week's report by Robert Half and published in the Journal of Accountancy miiiiight rain on your parade, at least in the short term.
Ninety-one percent of CFOs said they don’t expect to change their accounting and finance staffing levels in the second quarter; 4% plan to add staff; and 5% plan to reduce staff. The net decrease of 1 percentage point marked the first time since the third quarter of 2010 that the percentage of CFOs planning to reduce staff outnumbered those who expected to add staff.
This occurred even though 27% of respondents said they were very confident and 64% were somewhat confident in their second-quarter business prospects. More than 1,400 CFOs responded to the survey.
Is this a serious cause for concern? Meh, it's nothing like the Double Black Diamond-like falloff in '08 and '09. Jobs are simply taking longer to fill because it is a strong employers' market. For companies running on a 12/31/XX year-end, many approve hiring budgets with the turn of the new year; these jobs can take months to fill. Fear not job seekers – the US News paints a rosy picture for the future:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 15.7 percent growth for accountants between 2010 and 2020, which is much faster than the average growth for most other professions. An additional 190,700 accounting and auditing jobs will need to be filled during that time period. The profession's promising outlook has earned it the No. 21 spot on the Best Jobs of 2012 list.
So maybe those calls won’t be stopping anytime soon. For those of you on the job hunt right now, what are you seeing?
