Professions That Are Hiring Now

Although the overall U.S. employment picture remains grim, a net 4 percent of respondents said they planned to add professional staff in the second quarter (that is, 10 percent said they'd be increasing their staffs and 6 percent said they'd be decreasing them, while 82 percent predicted no change). In the legal profession, an impressive 26 percent said they would add jobs starting April 1, and none said they'd be eliminating them. The positions range from administrative and support staff to high-paid lawyer jobs. Law firms cut way back when the economic crisis hit in late 2008, and they're finding they need to hire again to keep pace with client demand, says Brett Good, a Robert Half district president. Firms that handle bankruptcies and foreclosures are especially busy.

The people polled included chief financial officers, chief information officers, senior human resource managers, lawyers, and executives in advertising and marketing. Along with the West North Central region, the West South Central and the Mountain regions also plan to add the most personnel. West South Central includes
Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas; Mountain is Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming.

Sales and business development ranked second among the professions, with a net 10 percent of respondents saying they planned to add staff. Information technology came in third, with 5 percent. Accounting and finance fared worst, with a net of -1 percent planning to hire.

The survey's lesson for young people: Go to college. The poll's finding that five of the six professions show a net expectation that they'll be hiring fits in with an important fact that data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown for the last decade, that unemployment among workers with college degrees is only half the overall unemployment rate.
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