Salary increase budgets average 3.80 percent in 2008 across non-exempt, exempt, and executive employee categories, while salary increase budgets for non-exempt hourly employees come in lower at 3.70 percent, The Conference Board reports. For 2009, the median budget for salary increases is projected to be 3.75 percent for both non-exempt salaried and hourly employees. The median salary increase budget projections for exempt and executive employees are higher at 3.80 percent for exempt and 3.90 percent for executives.

Swiss recruitment agency Adecco has agreed to buy Dutch staffing firm DNC for 56 million euros ($82.54 million), extending its push into the professional staffing market. A spokesman for Adecco, the world's largest staffing group, said the bid was unrelated to its approach for Michael Page. DNC is a Dutch specialised secondment firm with a workforce of around 1,200 people active in the ICT, Finance, Legal, Management Support & Information Management segments.

Vangent, Inc., provider of results-oriented human capital and talent management solutions, is a top sponsor of The Human Capital Institute, Talent Management Forum for Government, a leadership event for government human capital and personnel leaders and their teams taking place this month.

StreetSmartJobz.com is a job board"dedicated to those, who are smart, passionate and motivated to be successful, despite having no college degree and those who want an unique job search" and designed to match "street smart" people with employers, who recognize the value of these potential employees who offer a proven record of success.

Survey Says
Beyond.com, network of niche career communities, polled members across its network of thousands of sites to gauge whether professionals feel they are properly compensated at work. More than 3,000 Beyond.com Network visitors responded to the question: "Do you feel you are properly compensated in your job?"
11 % - Yes, I am properly compensated
 3 % - No, I am overpaid
77 % - No I am underpaid
 9 % - Unsure.

Employers in both the United States and Canada deploy a similar mix of employee rewards programs to attract and retain talent in an ever-changing marketplace with diverse employee needs. According to the 2008-2009 WorldatWork Salary Budget Survey among all surveyed total rewards programs, telework has shown the most significant 12-month increase in both countries.

Telework grew from 30 percent to 42 percent in the US, and in Canada from 25 percent to 40 percent;
Part-time employment with benefits: Offered by 38 percent of employers in Canada and 37 percent of employers in the U.S.; Retention bonuses: Grew from 27 percent in 2004 to 38 percent in 2008 in the U.S. with similar growth in Canada; Sign on/hiring bonuses: On the rise in both the U.S. (70 percent) and Canada (51 percent); Stock grant programs: Growing in both countries, though experiencing more rapid growth in the U.S. from seven percent in 2004 to 20 percent this year; Stock option programs: Declining in both countries; Spot bonuses: U.S. employers are more apt to pay spot bonuses: 45 percent compared to 34 percent of Canadian employers in 2008; Pay rates: 31 percent of U.S. employers pay above market compared to 25 percent in Canada; and Merit increase budgets: 16 percent of Canadian organizations report larger merit increase budgets in 2008 compared to 9 percent in the U.S.

Check out the online "live" R4 Assets and Liabilities Conference starting today.

LINE
The soft labor market of August 2008 is expected to continue into September with hiring expectations for manufacturing and service sector jobs predicted at their lowest September levels in four years, according to the latest Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) Report. LINE identifies early trends and changes in the national job market. It is a joint effort by the Society for Human Resource Management and the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations, and is released more than a month ahead of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) Employment Situation Report for the same period.

The report looks at four areas-employers' hiring expectations in the manufacturing and service sectors; the degree that compensation levels for new hires fluctuates for that month; the job vacancy index, and difficulty in recruiting A-level talent to fill strategically important vacancies.

Data for the report are collected through a monthly survey of HR executives at more than 500 manufacturing and 500 service sector organizations. LINE has been measuring the manufacturing trends since 2004 and the service sector trends since 2005.

Overall, the September employment expectations report shows a continuation of the trend toward a generally softer labor market, according to Jennifer Schramm, SHRM manager of workplace trends and forecasting.

When it comes to recruiting for A-level talent, "HR has got to look at it a little bit more long-term, and what we've seen long-term is that LINE has accurately reflected the weakening economy over the last six months," Director said.

Both the service and manufacturing sectors need to take a longer view of their staffing needs. "Even though manufacturing in the U.S. has been declining since 1979 … a lot of manufacturers still have difficulty finding the key people for those strategic roles," he observed.

Despite that, he added, there is an "increasing difficulty in recruiting people for key positions" in the service sector. This means it's "probably a good time for HR managers to be opportunistic and cream the market for the best talent" to go beyond filling positions in the immediate future.

To do that, manufacturing has to address how it can attract top talent in what is perceived as a declining sector.

Employment Expectations
In a repeat of the August LINE Report, the September LINE Report shows substantial drops in employment expectations in the manufacturing and service sectors. In fact, the expectation is that hiring in both sectors will be at the lowest September levels in four years.

New-Hire Compensation
This index measures whether compensation for new hires is going up or down. For the manufacturing sector, compensation for new hires fell slightly from 9.5 in August 2007 to 8.5 in August 2008, but it rose in the service sector from 10.2 in August 2007 to 14.2 in August 2008.

Job Vacancies
The change in the number of vacancies in exempt and nonexempt employment sectors that employers are actively trying to fill is an early indicator of the supply and demand of labor.

Job vacancies for exempt and nonexempt positions for both sectors are down substantially for August 2008 from a year ago.

Recruiting
The recruiting difficulty index measures how difficult it is for employers to recruit A-level candidates to fill positions that are of greatest strategic value to the employers. The difficulty in recruiting A-level candidates fell for both sectors in August 2008 compared to August 2007, with manufacturing experiencing a "substantial" drop in recruiting difficulty.

News Contact
Send your Company News to Polly Tasker for inclusion in The Bugler.

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