CT Ranks #3 Among States, Hartford is Top 30 City, As Businesses Expect More Hiring in First Quarter of 2021

The hiring outlook for Connecticut is among the best in the nation, according to a new survey of employers. Connecticut ranked third in the nation, behind only Vermont and Montana, in the percentage of employers who anticipate they’ll be hiring during the first quarter of 2021.

Nearly one-third of Connecticut business (31%) in the survey by ManpowerGroup expect to be hiring, higher than the national average of 21%.  It also ranks the state as second in New England, behind only Vermont, which led the nation, at 56%.  In Montana, 38% expected to be hiring and Iowa was tied with Connecticut at 31%.  The vast majority (65% nationwide) expect to keep workforce levels steady.

Connecticut’s anticipating hiring by local businesses is three times that of Massachusetts, which was at 10%, as well as Rhode Island (19%), New Hampshire (16%) and Maine (25%). Employers in New York (14%) and New Jersey (20%) were also not quite as optimistic as Connecticut employers, looking ahead to anticipated hiring levels in the first few months of the new year.

Nationwide in the first quarter of 2021, 21% of U.S. businesses surveyed expect to add to payrolls, while 6 % anticipate a decrease and 68% expect no change. Employers in three of the four U.S. regions report stronger hiring intentions when compared with the final quarter of 2020. The Outlook for the Midwest increases by 4 percentage points, while improvements of 3 and 2 percentage points are reported for the South and the West, respectively. In the Northeast, employers report relatively stable hiring plans, according to ManpowerGroup.

Among metropolitan regions in the U.S., Hartford area employers were among the most optimistic, ranking the MetroHartford region in the top 30 nationwide, with 18% of employers surveyed anticipating more hiring in Q1 of 2021. The percentage of Bridgeport and New Haven area businesses with similar expectations ranked those regions towards the lower end of the survey of employers in the 100 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas, at 6% and 5% respectively.

The survey also found that 13% of employers nationwide say pre-pandemic hiring will return before July 2021, down from 54% when asked in Q2, perhaps reflecting the resurgence in recent weeks of the pandemic across the country, along with renewed restrictions in many states. 

In the Northeast’s Leisure & Hospitality sector, employers report considerably weaker hiring intentions in comparison with the prior quarter. A moderate quarter-over-quarter decline is anticipated by the Northeast’s Transportation & Utilities sector employers, and the forecast for the region’s Education & Health Services sector is slightly weaker. The Northeast Region includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont.

Employers in all 12 U.S. industry sectors expect payroll gains in the January to March time frame, the survey found, including: Leisure & Hospitality (+26%), Transportation & Utilities (+22%), Wholesale & Retail Trade (+20%), Nondurable Goods Manufacturing (+19%), Construction (+17%), Professional & Business Services (+17%), Education & Health Services (+14%), Financial Activities (+14%), Durable Goods Manufacturing (+14%), Government (+10%), Information (+9%) and Other Services (+9%).

The margin of error for almost all national, regional and global data is not greater than +/- 5%. ManpowerGroup, which conducts the quarterly survey, is a leading global workforce solutions company. The ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey measures employers’ intentions to increase or decrease the number of employees in their workforces during the next quarter.