About the Report

The Robert Half Professional Employment Report is the first quarterly executive survey of its size and scope to focus exclusively on professional-level hiring. It is a compilation of telephone interviews with more than 4,000 C-level executives and other leaders from a variety of fields throughout the United States about their hiring plans for the upcoming quarter. Among the respondents are chief financial officers, chief information officers, senior human resources managers, lawyers, and advertising and marketing executives. Respondents also offer their views on the challenge of finding skilled professionals and their confidence in their companies' growth prospects. Robert Half has been reporting employment data through its Hiring Index program since 1992.

Why did Robert Half conduct this report?

  • The Professional Employment Report is a unique study focusing specifically on trends affecting professional occupations, which often differ from those in the marketplace at large. For example, the unemployment rate for workers with college degrees recently has been about half that of the general unemployment rate.
  • While there are a number of reports that apply to the general hiring environment or, like our hiring indices, to specific industries, there wasn't a study exclusively tracking hiring in professional occupations. As the world's largest staffing firm specializing exclusively in professional–level staffing, these are trends that we are interested in tracking.

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What makes Robert Half the expert?

  • Robert Half International is the world's first and largest specialized staffing firm, and we have worked with businesses and professional–level job seekers since 1948. Our company has monitored employment and workplace trends since our founding, and we have reported hiring data through our Hiring Index program since 1992. Our statistical research complements the conversations our staffing and recruiting professionals have with thousands of businesses and job seekers every day.

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What is your methodology?

  • The Professional Employment Report is a scientific study conducted by an independent research firm. It is based on telephone interviews of randomly selected executives with hiring responsibility to determine their organizations' intentions for hiring in professional occupations in the upcoming quarter.
  • More than 4,000 executives across various industries were interviewed. For the study to be statistically representative and ensure that businesses from all segments were represented, the sample was stratified by geographic region and company size (by number of employees). The results were then weighted to reflect the proper proportions of company size within each region.

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Why is it important the surveys were conducted via phone?

  • As with any survey, it is critical that the sample be representative of the target population, which means every respondent has a known probability of being selected. For a business–to–business survey, such as the Professional Employment Report, a telephone methodology is the most effective way of achieving that, in our view.
  • With other methodologies, such as a web panel, participants often are self–selected. In addition, for the Professional Employment Report, it is important that the respondent be responsible for hiring employees. Through a telephone interview, the research firm is able to identify the person within a company who fits this criterion.

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Who is surveyed?

  • The study is based on interviews with more than 4,000 executives across a number of industries, including more than:
    • 1,400 chief financial officers at companies with 20 or more employees
    • 1,400 chief information officers at companies with 100 or more employees
    • 500 senior human resources managers at companies with 20 or more employees
    • 100 lawyers at law firms with 20 or more employees and 100 corporate lawyers at companies with 1,000 or more employees
    • 125 advertising executives at companies with 20 or more employees and 375 marketing executives at companies with 100 or more employees

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What do the numbers represent? Are they actual jobs numbers?

  • The Professional Employment Report is a tool to measure executives' optimism about the coming quarter's hiring outlook for professional–level employees.
  • We do not track actual job gains or losses.

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What is the difference between professional services and business services?

  • The industry types in the report are based on U.S. primary standard industrial classification (SIC) codes.
  • Professional services include health services, legal services, educational services, social services, museums, art galleries and zoological gardens, membership organizations and engineering, accounting, research, management and related services.
  • Business services include advertising, personnel services, data processing, repair services, motion pictures and amusement and recreation services.

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Which states are in the regions listed in the report?

  • New England: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont
  • Middle Atlantic: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania
  • South Atlantic: Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia
  • East North Central: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin
  • West North Central: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota
  • East South Central: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee
  • West South Central: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas
  • Mountain: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
  • Pacific: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington

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Key Findings and Snapshots







John Reed, Executive Director for Robert Half
Technology, describes the hiring environment.

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