Maintenance technicians can look forward to hiring opportunities this fall as “companies should begin recruiting in October, November and December,” Jeff Richards, JSfirm.com’s business development manager, told AIN. A recent JSFirm.com internal study indicates most people begin job hunting in the last three months of the year and many begin a new job in January. JSfirm.com is an aviation-specific job board serving more than 4,000 companies and 425,000 job seekers annually. Richards said about 40 percent of companies looking to hire someone underestimate the two months that the process will take. “The company that hires the wrong person in haste gets hit twice economically. There’s the initial hiring and training costs plus the lost productivity, customer dissatisfaction and the need for another employee to do the job over. Overall it can cost a company tens of thousands of dollars,” he said. “As we come out of the recession the available pool of maintenance technicians will be absorbed quickly. OEMs are expecting a strong 2012, and Asian countries, especially China, are really ramping up. The demand for qualified technicians will far outstrip the supply. Now is the time to hire before there’s no one left to be hired,” he said.