Chief executives don’t expect much hiring to take place in the near term, according to a study of more than 100 earnings conference calls through July 21 by The Wall Street Journal.

Drawing on transcripts available through Capital IQ and FactSet Research Systems, the Journal found that about 50 companies directly addressed employee head counts.

An analysis of the data revealed that executives remained cautious about the struggling U.S. job market and they were willing only to invest in growth businesses or international markets such as Asia.

New jobs have been added, but hiring remained largely targeted and there was little activity outside of the technology and railroad sectors.

Focused on cutting costs in the wake of a tough recession, Randall Weisenburger, chief financial officer at advertising company Omnicom Group Inc., said in a July 19 conference call that it had been “a couple of years” since many of his employees received a raise.

“It’s an unfortunate state of the U.S. economy, and a lot of the global economies, that we’re going to have to keep those costs under control,” he said.

According to Robert Half International Inc., there was an uptick in demand for services in the second quarter, but much of the growth came from outside the United States. The firm said non-U.S. staffing operations have expanded to 30 percent, compared with 11 percent in 2000.