When it comes to hiring plans, employers certainly are becoming a predictable lot, according to the latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.

Twenty-one percent of firms surveyed said they plan to hire in the third quarter of 2006, flat from the 21% who said they intended to hire in the second quarter this year.

Every quarter for more than two years now, about 20% of firms said they planned to hire, according to the survey.

Manpower's seasonally adjusted net-employment numbers measure the percentage of firms planning to hire minus those intending layoffs. It does not measure the number of jobs. Manpower surveys about 16,000 U.S. companies on their hiring plans each quarter.

"It's steady, slow progress," said Jonas Prising, Manpower's president for the North America region.

The hiring outlook "remains solid, it remains positive," he said. "But, the net employment outlook remains more or less the same as it was last quarter, the same as last year, and it's running stable now for 10 quarters," Prising said.

The flat trend line may indicate that employers have a different strategy for hiring these days, Prising said.

"It's a really interesting time. You have a talent shortage in specific skills and in specific areas, but it's not broad-based," he said, noting that information technology is one area experiencing a shortage of qualified workers, as is the health-care field, plus skilled trades such as welders and machinists.

"You have certain pools of the workforce where there is a demand that outstrips the supply, and you have other pools of the workforce who are not affected by that, that are outside of this pressure," Prising said.

"Employers are very specific about what skills they want, when they want them and where they want them. There's no wave of mass hiring going on, even when the talent is scarce," he said. "If the talent can't be found at the right place at the right time," they don't hire, he said.

By the trades

The construction industry once again eased off on its hiring outlook, with 24% of firms planning to hire, down from 28% in the second quarter.

"The construction measure includes residential as well as commercial construction," Prising said. The drop in hiring plans "seems to confirm the idea that the housing market is starting to cool down."

Still, the construction industry remains the most optimistic of all 10 sectors surveyed, he noted.

The following are the net-employment outlooks for the upcoming third quarter, on a seasonally-adjusted basis for each of the 10 industries Manpower tracks, in order of most optimistic:

• Construction, 24%, down from 28% in the second quarter
• Durable-goods manufacturers, 23%, flat from 22% in the second quarter
• Finance, insurance and real estate, 23%, about flat from 21%
• Services, 23%, about flat from 21%
• Wholesale and retail trade, 21%, flat from 22%
• Transportation and public utilities, 20%, about flat from 17%
• Mining, 18%, down from 33%
• Non-durables manufacturers, 18%, about flat from 19%
• Education, 17% about flat from 16%
• Public administration, 16% up from 12%

By the regions

Employers in the West and the South showed the greatest hiring optimism among four regions nationwide, both with a 24% net-hiring outlook on a seasonally-adjusted basis, according to Manpower. In the previous quarter, 26% of employers said they'd hire, as did 23% of firms in the South.

In the Northeast, 20% of employers plan to hire, up from 17% in the previous quarter, while in the Midwest 18% said they'll hire in the upcoming quarter, up from 17%.