Employment Outlook for San Diego Drops

A new report from U-T San Diego says that companies in San Diego will continue to hire new employees at the same pace in the first quarter of 2014 as in the first quarter of 2013. The report also noted that there is a slight increase in the number of companies that plan layoffs as well.

The employment outlook for San Diego by Manpower, which was released earlier this month, polls 120 companies. The same 120 companies are surveyed in each quarter of the year, asking them what their hiring plans are for each quarter.

Fifteen percent of the companies surveyed said that they plan to hire in the first three months of 2014, which matches the data from 2013. Of the survey respondents, 11 percent noted that they plan to issue layoffs in the first three months of 2014, which is two percentage points higher than the number for 2013.

The rest of the field showed the following data:

– Three percent did not know

– 71 percent said levels would stay the same

In the month of November, the unemployment rate in San Diego dropped to 6.8 percent, which matches a five-year low for the city.

The CEO of Manpower, Phil Blair, said, “It was much more conservative than I expected, and that’s why I think employers, when they look back at this, are going to be pleasantly surprised that the economy continued to grow at a good healthy rate, with no extreme ups or downs.”