Results from the most recent Robert Half Financial Hiring Index indicate that staff levels in accounting and finance should hold mostly steady in the second quarter of 2012.
In a survey involving telephone interviews with 1,400 chief financial officers (CFO), 91 percent of respondents said they expect to maintain their current personnel levels in the second quarter. Sixty-nine percent answered that question the same way at the start of the year.
Four percent of respondents say they plan to add employees and 5 percent predicted staff decreases. The results were less positive in the South Atlantic region (Virginia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.), where 11 percent of executives plan to reduce staff and 84 percent expect to maintain their current personnel levels.
The East South Central (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee) and Mountain (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming) regions were the most bullish on hiring, with a net 5 percent of executives saying they plan to add staff.
Ninety-one percent of executives said they were confident in their companies’ growth prospects for the second quarter, a 4 percent increase from the first quarter.
"As economic signs continue to improve incrementally in the United States, companies are hiring skilled accounting and finance professionals at a steady rate to meet demand," Robert Half International (RHI) Chairman and CEO Max Messmer said. "Staff reductions are trending downward as businesses seek to avoid weakening their bench strength at a time when growth opportunities are emerging."
Showing posts with label CFO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CFO. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wilkerson Was Prepared for Virginia CFO Honor
VSCPA member Michael Wilkerson, CPA, was honored with a nomination for the 2010 Virginia CFO Awards, presented by Virginia Business magazine and the VSCPA. He didn’t win, but he did learn something from the experience.
“I was there at the event last year, so I prepared some remarks in case I won,” Wilkerson said. “Like the lady sitting next to me at the table, she won last night. … She stood up and said ‘I’m supposed to say something?’ She was taken completely off guard. You go once and you learn. I was going to have something to say.”
It’s a good thing Wilkerson came to the June 23 awards ceremony prepared. He was honored as the top winner in the “Small Private Company” category for his work with Ashland-based Richmond Group, LLC, and Dominion Equipment Parts, LLC.
Not bad for a guy who didn’t expect to stick very long at his company. But under Wilkerson’s steady hand, the Richmond Group has grown into a force to be reckoned with in the heavy equipment industry.
“It turned into something that I really didn’t expect. I expected it to be kind of a stepping stone,” he said. “Now it’s four companies with 30 employees and has gone from 4 million in revenue to about 30 million in revenue.”
Wilkerson, a Chesterfield native, majored in finance at Radford University after graduating from Monacan High School. He decided, along with two friends, to sit for the CPA Exam — “Misery loves company,” he says — and began taking accounting classes at Virginia Commonwealth University. He received his CPA license in 1996.
Before joining the Richmond Group, he spent eight years as a bank examiner with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and five years with the Markel Corporation as an internal auditor and manager of accounts receivable.
Wilkerson’s favorite part of his job is getting a big-picture look at his company.
“The biggest thing I like about it is that it gives you an overall view of how a company is performing, how it runs,” he said. “Everything is based off of numbers, whether it’s sales, whether it’s operations or new products. Everything comes down to accounting and ‘Does it make sense?’”
Wilkerson lives in Mechanicsville with his wife, Tami, and his children, Brandon and Brittany. He’s active in coaching youth baseball and basketball, including his children’s teams, and he’s a board member of the Atlee Little League.
He takes time to lend his financial expertise to the community as well, teaching personal finance classes at the Richmond Technical Center. It’s that kind of dedication to his craft that meant he got to deliver that speech to his fellow CFOs.
“I was there at the event last year, so I prepared some remarks in case I won,” Wilkerson said. “Like the lady sitting next to me at the table, she won last night. … She stood up and said ‘I’m supposed to say something?’ She was taken completely off guard. You go once and you learn. I was going to have something to say.”
It’s a good thing Wilkerson came to the June 23 awards ceremony prepared. He was honored as the top winner in the “Small Private Company” category for his work with Ashland-based Richmond Group, LLC, and Dominion Equipment Parts, LLC.
Not bad for a guy who didn’t expect to stick very long at his company. But under Wilkerson’s steady hand, the Richmond Group has grown into a force to be reckoned with in the heavy equipment industry.
“It turned into something that I really didn’t expect. I expected it to be kind of a stepping stone,” he said. “Now it’s four companies with 30 employees and has gone from 4 million in revenue to about 30 million in revenue.”
Wilkerson, a Chesterfield native, majored in finance at Radford University after graduating from Monacan High School. He decided, along with two friends, to sit for the CPA Exam — “Misery loves company,” he says — and began taking accounting classes at Virginia Commonwealth University. He received his CPA license in 1996.
Before joining the Richmond Group, he spent eight years as a bank examiner with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and five years with the Markel Corporation as an internal auditor and manager of accounts receivable.
Wilkerson’s favorite part of his job is getting a big-picture look at his company.
“The biggest thing I like about it is that it gives you an overall view of how a company is performing, how it runs,” he said. “Everything is based off of numbers, whether it’s sales, whether it’s operations or new products. Everything comes down to accounting and ‘Does it make sense?’”
Wilkerson lives in Mechanicsville with his wife, Tami, and his children, Brandon and Brittany. He’s active in coaching youth baseball and basketball, including his children’s teams, and he’s a board member of the Atlee Little League.
He takes time to lend his financial expertise to the community as well, teaching personal finance classes at the Richmond Technical Center. It’s that kind of dedication to his craft that meant he got to deliver that speech to his fellow CFOs.
Monday, August 2, 2010
How Optimistic Are CFOs About the Economy?
CFOs are expressing less confidence and a bit more caution, according to the second quarter 2010 "CFO Outlook Survey," released by Financial Executives International (FEI) and Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business.
After rising for four consecutive quarters, the Q2 CFO Optimism Index for the U.S. economy experienced a nearly five point decrease (down from 58.14 to 53.60), and CFOs' outlook for their own companies fell slightly from 69.49 to 67.40.
While confidence is down, and areas such as IPO activity and the rate of capital spending remain slow, CFOs' outlook toward credit is more favorable and various findings demonstrate substantial progress since 2009.
Here are some of the survey findings:
~Regarding healthcare, two thirds (66%) plan to increase the monthly amount that their employees pay for benefits, and more than a third (34%) also plan to decrease the scope of the healthcare package.
~Regarding access to credit, less than one fifth of respondents (17%) feel that it will be more difficult to access credit over the next six months, compared to the 24 percent of CFOs who shared this sentiment when asked in the third quarter of 2009.
~When asked about the potential impact the financial regulatory reform package would have, the most-cited effect was increased banking costs (45%), followed by additional compliance and reporting requirements and costs (39%).
~The majority of CFOs (53%) also predict their taxes will increase. Despite expected tax increases, a large majority of CFOs (78%) remain confident that their business decisions will remain unaffected by the tax outlook.
~CFOs are expecting increases in net earnings (20%), revenue (11%) and hiring and technology spending (both at 7%) over the next 12 months. CFOs will face a number of added expenses over the next 12 months, including new costs related to taxes, financial regulatory reform and healthcare.
Read more at http://www.vscpa.com/.
After rising for four consecutive quarters, the Q2 CFO Optimism Index for the U.S. economy experienced a nearly five point decrease (down from 58.14 to 53.60), and CFOs' outlook for their own companies fell slightly from 69.49 to 67.40.
While confidence is down, and areas such as IPO activity and the rate of capital spending remain slow, CFOs' outlook toward credit is more favorable and various findings demonstrate substantial progress since 2009.
Here are some of the survey findings:
~Regarding healthcare, two thirds (66%) plan to increase the monthly amount that their employees pay for benefits, and more than a third (34%) also plan to decrease the scope of the healthcare package.
~Regarding access to credit, less than one fifth of respondents (17%) feel that it will be more difficult to access credit over the next six months, compared to the 24 percent of CFOs who shared this sentiment when asked in the third quarter of 2009.
~When asked about the potential impact the financial regulatory reform package would have, the most-cited effect was increased banking costs (45%), followed by additional compliance and reporting requirements and costs (39%).
~The majority of CFOs (53%) also predict their taxes will increase. Despite expected tax increases, a large majority of CFOs (78%) remain confident that their business decisions will remain unaffected by the tax outlook.
~CFOs are expecting increases in net earnings (20%), revenue (11%) and hiring and technology spending (both at 7%) over the next 12 months. CFOs will face a number of added expenses over the next 12 months, including new costs related to taxes, financial regulatory reform and healthcare.
Read more at http://www.vscpa.com/.
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