It looks like the unemployment rate is going to remain stubbornly high at near the 10% rate for awhile. This is the conclusion of two studies released Tuesday.

For example, 73 percent of employers told Manpower they have no plans to hire people in the second quarter of this year. This sentiment is unchanged from the survey conducted three months ago.

In addition, 16 percent expect to add to their payrolls while 8 percent anticipate a decrease in employment during the second quarter.

In a separate survey released on the same day, 85 percent of chief financial officers (CFOs) interviewed for the Robert Half International Financial Hiring Index indicated they do not anticipate any changes to their full-time accounting and finance personnel levels.

The only hopeful sign: 84 percent of CFOs said they are at least somewhat confident in their companies' second-quarter growth prospects.

This is disheartening news. The longer people remain out of work, the less likely they are to spend.

And keep in mind that you should not just be focusing on the unemployment rate, which is a tad below 10 percent. Nearly 20 percent more say they are underemployed.

And neither of these figures include those who are so fed up they no longer actively seek work or respond to annoying surveys that remind them of their plight.

This does not bode well for the economy. The only silver lining is that layoff rate seems to be slowing down.

For example, just 8 percent of respondents to the Manpower survey anticipate decreasing their staff in the second quarter, down from 12 percent who expressed such plans for the first quarter and 14 percent for the fourth quarter of 2009.

In the Robert Half survey, just 8 percent of CFOs said they expect staff reductions.

The Manpower survey includes a select sample of more than 18,000 employers located within 200 Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the U.S. and one in Puerto Rico.

The Robert Half International Financial Hiring Index is based on telephone interviews with more than 1,400 CFOs across the United States.