Private companies, expecting revenue growth to soar far past that of gross domestic product (GDP), are in a hiring mode not seen since pre-recession days. While various GDP forecasts for the United States call for 2014 growth of less than 3 percent, the average predicted revenue gain for the next 12 months, among 213 private companies surveyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers between January and April, was 8.5 percent.