Rasmussen Employment Survey: 19% of Workers Report Their Firm is Hiring, 25% Laying Off

In contrast to a Gallup poll that shows more companies are hiring than firing, a Rasmussen Reports poll shows the opposite.

Please consider Rasmussen Employment Index
19% of Workers Report Their Firm is Hiring, 25% Laying Off

The Rasmussen Employment Index, which measures workers’ perceptions of the labor market each month, regained five points in April after falling to a recent low in March. At 74.9, the Employment Index is up two points from a year ago and 11 points from two years ago. Yet despite April’s gain, confidence in the Labor Market is still down from the beginning of 2011.



Just 19% of working Americans now report that their firms are hiring while 25% say their firms are laying workers off. Those numbers are little changed from the month before. It has been nearly three years since the number reporting that their firms are hiring has topped the number reporting lay-offs.



Twenty-eight percent (28%) of workers are now worried about losing their jobs in the near future. That’s down a point from a month ago when concern reached the highest level since September 2010.

The survey of 8,522 working Americans was conducted in April 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 1 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

28% Worried About Losing Their Job

One of the key finding in the survey is the number of people worried about losing their job. Those with such worries are not likely to go on spending sprees.

However, I cannot explain the huge divergence between the Rasmussen survey and the recent Gallup survey.

Gallup Survey Question

Based on what you know or have seen, would you say that in general, your company or employer is --
1) hiring new people and expanding the size of the workforce
2) not changing the size of its workforce
3) letting people go and reducing the size of its workforce



Gallup hiring minus firing = +13.
Rasmussen hiring minus firing is-6.

That is a huge difference for which I have no explanation.

For details and commentary on the Gallup survey, please see Gallup: U.S. Job Creation At Post-Recession High; What's Next? How Congress Can Spur Job Creation

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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