Spotlight Online for College Employment and Recruiting Professionals, January 6, 2010 

Spotlight Online for Career Services Professionals, January 6, 2010

While the job market for new college graduates remains tough, there are signs that the job market is improving, according to results of NACE’s monthly polls. 

Each month, NACE polls its employer members and reports the results as an index for college hiring and an index for recruiting activity. Index scores range from 0 to 200 (100 represents no change; scores below 100 represent an expected decrease; scores above 100 represent an expected increase).  

NACE’s latest poll, reported as an index, shows that the index for college hiring stands at 98.2—up from 87.2 in the November poll. The current poll covers employer expectations over the January, February, and March time frame, but is updated monthly to reflect expectations on an ongoing basis. 

While the college Class of 2010 is facing a tough job market, there has been improvement in the hiring index for three consecutive months indicating that college hiring may have stopped receding and is slowly starting to rebuild. 

In addition, there has been steady improvement in the number of employers that expect to increase their college hiring: Approximately one-third (33.4 percent) of the employers polled in December said they expect to increase their college hiring, compared to 28 percent in the November poll and 26 percent in the October poll.  

Currently, 26.7 percent report plans to reduce college hiring—a lower percent for reduction than has been seen in some time. In fact, it marks the first time since August 2008 that the percentage of employers planning to increase college hiring has outpaced the percentage planning to decrease. 

The current poll, conducted December 2, 2009 - January 4, 2010, also shows that employers plan to be more active in recruiting new college graduates for their work forces. Currently, the recruiting activity index is at 95.4—up from 89.8 in November. However, much of that increase reflects the timing of the November and December polls, when employers typically don’t recruit, but start to gear up again in January.  

NACE’s next poll will be conducted January 4 - February 1; results will be reported in Spotlight Online.