Businesses may be recovering from a difficult year in 2020, according to a recent survey by The Harris Poll.
The Oklahoma City-based firm Express Employment Professionals commissioned the online survey, which was conducted between Nov. 16 and Dec. 7, 2020. More than 1,000 hiring decision-makers participated in the survey, and data was weighted by company size when necessary to bring them in line with their actual proportion in the population.
In January 2020, only 31% of hiring decision-makers said they were planning to expand their staff, Express said in a recent news release. But that number rose to 39% in the second half of 2020 and has reached 46% for the first half of this year.
Business restrictions associated with COVID-19 eased up in the second half of 2020, prompting businesses to hire additional workers and replace staffers who did not return to their previous positions, said Express franchise owner John Calabrese of Utica, New York.
“Sectors like warehouse/ distribution and manufacturers that pivoted to PPE (personal protective equipment) and online order fulfillment boomed in the second half of the year,” Calabrese said. “This led to a sharp turnaround of increased hiring at record levels.”
Jan Riggins, general manager for two Express franchises in Fort Worth, Texas, said her offices experienced a dramatic increase in demand for logistics clients in the second half of 2020.
“Workforce challenges resulting from COVID-19 meant not only did we have new positions to fill, but pay rates dramatically increased to attract available talent,” she said.
Franchise owners Riggins, Calabrese and Dwight Hahn agreed that hiring increases at the end of 2020 stemmed from an increased work volume, followed by the need to replace workers due to turnover and fill new positions.
Still, some companies did not ramp up their hiring in recent months for a variety of reasons, Express said in the news release.
“Some clients shifted resources to backfill for their own COVID staffing issues, and as funding dried up, either their employees returned or the company needed fewer of them,” said Hahn, who owns the Express franchise in Windsor, Connecticut. “Other business sectors like catering and hospitality simply haven’t come back, so those clients are either gone or on a shoestring budget with minimum staff levels.”