For more than 60 years, Manpower Group has conducted its quarterly hiring outlook survey. This is the largest survey of its kind, soliciting date from more than 40,000 employers in 42 countries. The net hiring outlook is the difference between employers planning to increase hiring and those anticipating a decrease. For the upcoming quarter, 41% of surveyed employers anticipate increased payroll, while 16% anticipate a decline. This represents a net hiring outlook of 25%, a modest increase of 3 percentage points from the previous quarter, but a decline of 5 percentage points compared to last year. Some of the key takeaways include:
- The strongest hiring outlook for Q4 is in India (37%), while the weakest is in Argentina (4%). This means that all countries in the survey expect hiring increases over the next three months, although in many cases hiring plans are lower than they were a year ago.
- On a YOY basis, the most improved outlook is in Hungary (5%), while the weakest is Puerto Rico (-23%)
- The strongest quarter-over-quarter improvements are in Romania and Singapore (9% each), followed by Greece and the UK (8% each)
- While employers of all sizes plan to add headcount, more hiring is expected among employers with 250-999 employees (32%)
- Once again, information technology is the strongest sector. This is the 8th consecutive quarter that IT hiring plans lead the way, in spite of a contraction in the tech industry. Other strong industry sectors include:
- Financials and real estate
- Healthcare and life sciences
- Industrials and materials
- Transport, logistics, and automotive
The Manpower survey also asks about workforce trends. Some highlights include:
- Most respondents believe we are in an employer’s market, by a roughly 2:1 margin
- Increasing work-life balance is the top priority for employers (though you might not guess that based on the number of recent RTO headlines)
- The talent shortage continues to be a vexing issue for employers in multiple sectors, with up to three-fourths of employers reporting difficulties finding enough qualified workers
With the US Federal Reserve’s recent interest rate cut, plus nearing the end of a contentious presidential election in the US, we are hopeful that hiring will continue to open up over the quarter and into 2025. Third-party recruiters who can leverage deep networks and connections are poised for greater success as stronger hiring will still be tempered by the ongoing worker shortage.