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.

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