A new survey of CFOs suggests that staffing levels in corporate accounting and finance departments will remain essentially unchanged in the third quarter.
Eighty-four percent of the 1,400 CFOs surveyed by recruiter Robert Half International said they would neither increase nor decrease the size of their teams. Those CFOs who do anticipate making changes in the third quarter were evenly split, with 6 percent planning to add staff and 6 percent anticipating staff reductions.
Nevertheless, employers are still having difficulty finding skilled employees for open jobs. Accounting positions are the most challenging to fill, according to 32 percent of the CFOs surveyed, while audit and finance roles were each cited by 18 percent of respondents as the hardest.
Robert Half is seeing the most demand in Middle Atlantic states such as New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania for skills such as budget forecasting and strategic planning, along with the West South Central region of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, where there is demand in the energy sector. A net 4 percent of the CFOs surveyed in those two regions anticipate adding full-time accounting and finance professionals in the third quarter.
