The leading Indicator of National Employment (LINE), a report that was jointly authored by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations, provides an early, accurate indication of changing job market conditions and is closely attuned with the regular report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report surveyed Human Resources in 500 manufacturing and 500 service companies.

The report relies on extensive surveys of Human Resources executives in manufacturing and service sector corporations to come up with economic indicators that identify early economic trends and changes in the national job market. The report focuses on four key employment measures, namely, job expectations, job vacancies, new-hire compensation and recruitment difficulty.

Employment expectations in the manufacturing sector remain strong for July but are lower than in June. However, the outlook for July 2006 is still better than in July 2005. The report indicates that the demand for workers is increasingly strong, with more vacant positions for both exempt and nonexempt staff. However, HR executives say that they are having a difficult time finding and recruiting qualified workers with the required skills. Despite this apparent shortage of available workers, there are no plans to increase new-hire compensation.

In the service industry, a reported 58% of employers plan to expand their labor force over in July 2006, a figure which is actually down from 66 percent in June, but still a strong indicator of an expansionary job market. Close to a third of employers reported an increasing number of vacancies that they are actively trying to fill and about 21 percent said it was getting harder to find qualified workers. This reflects a five percent increase from June.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) is the world's largest association devoted to human resource management. Representing more than 210,000 individual members, the Society's mission is both to serve human resource management professionals and to advance the profession. Founded in 1948, SHRM currently has more than 500 affiliated chapters within the United States and members in more than 100 countries.