Manpower's Employment Outlook Survey ranked in third place in the Expatica HR 2007/2008 Top 5 Industry Survey Awards. The quarterly survey, which has been running for more than 45 years, was seen as a topic of interest for HR managers, scoring well for methodology and readability.

The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey is currently available for 33 countries and territories:  Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Employment Outlook Survey: results for the first quarter of 2009

Globally, year-on-year hiring forecasts are weaker in the 25 countries and territories surveyed by Manpower. Of the 17 countries surveyed in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, employers in 11 are expecting positive hiring activity. However, hiring in the region is generally expected to be slower with weaker Outlooks reported for 16 countries compared to the fourth quarter of 2008.

Strongest first quarter job prospects

The strongest first-quarter job prospects were reported by employers in Peru (+24 percent), India (+19 percent), Costa Rica (+19 percent), Canada (+18 percent), Romania (+16 percent), Colombia (+16 percent), South Africa (+13 percent), Australia (+12 percent), Poland (+12 percent), the United States (+10 percent), and China (+10 percent).

Europe: UK, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland show negative prospects

In Europe, Manpower observes negative and declining Employment Outlooks compared to the 4th quarter of 2008, in France ( +4% in Q4/2008 to -2 percent Q1/2009), United Kingdom (0 percent to -4 percent), Spain (-5 percent to -9 percent) , Italy (-2 percent to -9 percent) and Ireland (-3 percent to -12 percent). In Germany (+4 percent)  hiring plans remain positive, the same is true for 10 other countries surveyed in Europe.

Focus on results for the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and the United States for the first quarter:

France
Employers in France expected employment prospects to decrease between January and March 2009 and reported the weakest outlook since the beginning of the survey in the country. 

Spain

Four percent of the Spanish employers surveyed expect to add employees to their workforces from January to March 2009, and the 17 percent expect to reduce their workforces. When seasonal variations are removed from the data, the Net Employment Outlook for Spain declines to -9 percent.

UK
Employers in the UK forecast their weakest January to March hiring in 15 years, however a large proportion of employers (82 percent) said they were taking a ‘wait and see’ approach with no planned changes to their payrolls for the first three months of the year.   The Net Employment Outlook is -2 percent.

Germany
In Germany, The current economic uncertainty and doubts about the future are causing most companies to put their employment decisions on hold, however, the Manpower Germany CEO sees the demand for skilled workers remaining high – independent of the current crisis. The Net Employment Outlook is 4 percent.

Belgium
Belgian employers are expecting to slow the pace of hiring in the first quarter of 2009 and the majority are adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach’.

 Switzerland
Five of the seven regions surveyed report positive hiring prospects for the first quarter of 2009 with Espace Mittelland showing the highest Net Employment Outlook, followed by employers in the Lake Geneva region. The poorest hiring outlooks were reported from the region of Ticino  and in Zurich.

Netherlands
The Net Employment Outlook for employers in the Netherlands is positive (+8 percent) although this is lower than the Net Employment Outlook recorded for the same period in 2008 (+10 percent).

US
US employers are proceeding with caution, with as many as 67 percent of employers planning to hold staff levels steady for the first quarter of 2009.

An employer's market

"With fewer jobs available and more applicants for each job, the strongest CV will win, says Managing Director of Manpower UK,  Mark Cahill.

"Jobseekers should constantly look to retrain and up-skill and be open to taking on jobs that they may not have considered when opportunities in the labour market were more abundant.

 “In the longer term, employers are more likely to hire temporary over permanent staff until such time the economy stabilises and they feel more confident to commit to adding employees.”

February 2009

Read our report on Manpower's Employment Outlook  for the second quarter of 2009, released on 10 March.

Winners of the Expatica HR 2007/2008 Top 5 Industry Survey Awards

1.    2007 Expatriate Work-life Balance Survey – ORC Worldwide
2.    Global Relocation Trends - 2008 Survey Report – GMAC Global Relocation Services
3.    Employment Outlook Survey – Manpower
4.    2008 Global Tax Policy Survey Report – ORC Worldwide
5.    2007 Survey of International Localization Policies and Practices – ORC Worldwide

 Click here for more information on the Expatica 2007/ 2008 Top 5 Industry Awards.

We'll shortly be publishing a summary of the results of the other winning surveys on the Employment channel and Expatica HR.