Survey: 2005 Will Be Strong Year for Hiring

Overall hiring of full-time employees will be up 5% over 2004 totals, according to the report. In 2005, 44% of human resource executives planned to increase total headcount, compared to only 11% who expect a decrease. Forty-five percent of those polled expect to see no change in headcount.

The survey makes a special mention of the network management sector of the information technology industry, which will see a large increase in head count in the coming year.

Looking at software and the effects of the PeopleSoft-Oracle deal (See Oracle, PeopleSoft Settle Takeover Battle ), Piper Jaffray suggests that the merger of the two companies will have little effect on the sale of PeopleSoft products. Ninety-three percent of those polled said the deal did not change their likelihood of purchasing PeopleSoft products, and 97% said they expect spending on PeopleSoft applications to either remain the same or increase in the coming year. In fact, 9% of PeopleSoft customers have seen and expect to see an increase in spending on PeopleSoft products, even if they are buying them from Oracle (See Hanging Tough ).

Looking at individual recruiting firms, Piper Jaffray expects Monster to maintain is large online market share relative to CareerBuilder, and also expects that online recruitment spending will dramatically outpace that in newspapers, recruiters and job fairs. The report predicts that overall spending growth in the online employment market will rise 12% on the year.

The survey also predicts that the overall market for pre-employment screening will grow in 2005 by 12%. Choicepoint will remain the dominant force in the marketplace, the report suggests. Robert Half also received a mention for the high quality of its job candidates.

The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive, with 324 HR professionals responding.