Seasonally Adjusted, 5% Job Growth in 2nd Quarter, Manpower Finds

Seventy-three percent of companies polled in a new Manpower survey said their will not hire employees in the second quarter. Though 16 percent report they will increase hiring, eight percent will cut, for a net gain of eight percent.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, hiring will increase at about five percent of businesses surveyed. That is up from a decline of two percent a year ago, Manpower says.

That 73 percent of firms plan no hiring is a record-tying high in the history of the poll, Manpower says.

The leisure & hospitality industry has a strong outlook and is hiring. So is the professional and business services sector.

The news tends to reinforce the views of economists and the Congressional Budget Office that U.S. unemployment will stay close to 10 percent though the middle of 2010.

That will almost certainly constrain consumer spending and activity in the housing market, suggesting a sluggish recovery.

There had been some hope, particularly early in the current quarter, that business activity had begun to pick up sharply. It turns out that companies were replacing depleted inventory and that core GDP was not improving in any measurable way, says Doug McIntyre, 24/7 Wall Street columnist.

McIntyre is skeptical the latest attempt at stimulus will work, either. The latest "jobs" bill will focus on direct credits for businesses that hire, more state aid, and more infrastructure investment, says McIntyre.

The theory is that these plans will mainline capital to the place where the employment problem is most acute–small and medium-sized business which tend to have limited access to credit, he notes.

But tax credits for hiring do not improve employment if companies see no increase in the demand for their products and services, he says.

The good news is that we are working our way out of the great recession. The bad news is that it appears to be a tough, dogged slog upwards.