Although administrative and clerical workers' confidence has remained steady, it has slightly declined for the second consecutive quarter, according to the Randstad Administrative Employee Confidence Index, a measure of overall confidence among U.S. administrative and clerical workers.
With this drop, confidence level among respondents is now 47.8, representing the lowest confidence level among all industries tracked by Randstad. This is a drop of 0.3 points from the previous quarter.
"For the most part, administrative and clerical workers feel the same in terms of their confidence in the economy, job market and their personal employment situation when compared to the second quarter," says Phyllis Finley, executive vice president at Randstad US.
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While 42 percent of respondents report that the economy is weakening, 20 percent of respondents say it is improving, and 37 percent of respondents say it has remained the same.
"Although the majority of workers in the administrative and clerical function believe fewer jobs are available, a third of them are also stating they are confident in their ability to find one," Finley says. "In fact, the November Bureau of Labor Statistics employment situation report showed an increase of 22,300 new jobs in the administrative and support services sector. Also, when you look at year-over-year trends in our own confidence report, overall sentiment is up by 6.2 points from this time last year. What this tells us is that this incremental drop in overall confidence should not be considered a trend just yet."
Few respondents say more jobs are available as only 16 percent say this is the case, and 56 percent of respondents say fewer opportunities are on the market. Another one-third of respondents say they are confident they could find new employment. Meanwhile, 35 percent of respondents are neutral about finding new jobs, and 32 percent of respondents are not confident they could secure other jobs.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents say they are confident when it comes to the future of their current employers; only 15 percent of respondents do not feel the same way. In the next year, 30 percent of respondents expect to look for new employment, but 53 percent of respondents do not plan to do so.
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