Vancouver area job seekers can look forward to moderately good hiring conditions in the second quarter of 2010, according to a Manpower Canada survey being released today.

Nineteen per cent of employers in the region plan to hire during the April-to-June period and 10 per cent expect to cut, for a net employment outlook of nine per cent, the staffing services firm said.

Seventy per cent of employers in the area plan to keep current staffing levels unchanged, while one per cent don’t know what they will do.

Hakan Bozkaya, manager of Manpower’s Vancouver office, said the next quarter’s employment outlook is far healthier than the year-ago level of minus one per cent.

“It gives an impression that we are recovering from the economic downturn,” Bozkaya said.

The second quarter’s outlook of nine per cent is down from the 11 per cent logged for the first quarter. But Bozkaya said the first quarter’s outlook might have been inflated by Olympics hiring plans, while the second quarter points to an encouraging level of business-as-usual activity.

In Vancouver and across the West, the transportation and public-utilities sector will show the greatest hiring hunger in the second quarter, with an employment outlook of 20 per cent.

Just behind it in terms of anticipated demand are finance, insurance and real estate at 18 per cent, Manpower said. Construction and mining tie for third at 14 per cent.

For the country as a whole, Manpower sees a “fair hiring climate” in the second quarter.

The national net hiring outlook is seven per cent, seasonally adjusted, which is three points weaker than the current quarter but six points ahead of the outlook a year ago.

Byrne Luft, vice-president of marketing for Manpower Canada, said the quarter-to-quarter decline does not necessarily point to weakening hiring.

The previous survey was taken near the end of budget cycles for many employers, and many also found they had some extra money left over for hiring, Luft said. He said the latest survey is indicative of a “jobless recovery” that is typical when an economy is coming out of recession.