The Spherion Employee Confidence Index remained virtually unchanged in September, declining 0.3 points to 47.3. The index revealed that while workers' confidence in the future of their current employer decreased slightly by two percentage points to 63 percent, 76 percent of workers still believe it is unlikely they will lose their jobs in the next 12 months.

AMN Healthcare, a healthcare staffing company, now offers Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) services. It is a provider of: travel nurse staffing, locum tenens staffing (temporary physician staffing), physician permanent placement services and allied staffing.

TheCareerProject.org, a mentor database, designed to help guide and inspire people who are just starting out in the workforce or looking to change fields, celebrates its first anniversary.

Valiant, a provider of comprehensive workforce management solutions delivered on a hosted SaaS platform, expands its national reach with the addition of four new regional sales offices located in Chicago, IL, Austin, TX, Charlotte, NC, and Cincinnati, OH, respectively. Additional offices are slated to open soon.

New York City-based GetWorking is a recently launched job coaching service for the marketing and advertising community.It offers streamlined and personalized coaching services led by GetWorking Advisors, experienced marketers as well as job search mentors.

Internet Research Behavior Survey is part of an ongoing Trends in HR Marketing report series. Results focuses specifically on how Internet, Web 2.0 and social network technologies are impacting the purchasing of products and services for HR and employee benefits professionals. Survey data was collected in August 2008 and is based on responses from HR and benefits professionals.

The key trends outlined in this survey reveal much about the online HR buying process.

Highlights include:

• 64% of HR buyers turn to the Internet first (even before turning to peers) when searching for HR products/services they are interested in purchasing;


• Over half of HR buyers surveyed use an Internet search engine at least once per week to search for information related to human resources. The most popular search engine - Google, among nearly 90% of respondents;


• While many buyers say they visit the Internet "daily" for HR information, they do not rely on any single web site; instead, they visit several sites;


• Nearly half of the HR buyers surveyed participate in an HR-related webcast at least once per quarter;


• Nearly two-thirds of HR buyers read at least one white paper/research report each quarter;