Rosy jobs market ahead across most of the globe

The new Manpower Employment Outlook Survey indicates that Hong Kong employers are growing increasingly more optimistic, and that in the first quarter of 2011 job seekers may benefit from a more active hiring pace.

After seasonal variations are removed from the survey data, Hong Kong’s Net Employment Outlook stands at a respectable +21%. Employer hiring intentions improve both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year by four and seven percentage points, respectively.

While 21% of the 809 employers surveyed expect to add employees over the next three months only one percent predicted reducing staffing levels. 74% of the survey respondents anticipate no employment changes over the next quarter.

“The survey results show that employment prospects have continued to improve steadily each quarter since the second quarter of 2009. In addition, GDP growth, which expanded briskly by 6.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2010, has helped strengthen the job market, pushing down the latest unemployment rate to 4.2 per cent, the lowest since Q4 2008,” Lancy Chui, Managing Director of Manpower Hong Kong, Macau and Vietnam Operations, said.

Employers in all six industry sectors anticipate positive hiring activity in Q1 2011. The most optimistic hiring intentions are reported by employers in the Services sector, with a solid outlook of +26%. The Services sector outlook improves four percentage points over the last quarter and one percentage point over the same quarter last year.

“Consumer enthusiasm in the luxury products or services, and the remarkably strong 9.6 percent expansion of China’s GDP in the third quarter of 2010 are likely to continue benefiting Hong Kong’s tourism and its related industry sectors in the coming months,” Chiu said. “Deep-pocketed mainlanders continue to boost the demand for workers in this sector.”

“As for the Retail Trade sector, despite an obvious turnaround to the positive, Hong Kong retailers continue to endure some of the world’s most expensive retail space and the scarcity of prime units continues to push rental increases accordingly. This is an ongoing cost consideration and another factor that may impact employers’ ability to hire,” explained Chui.

Job seekers are likely to encounter a favourable hiring climate, according to employers in the Wholesale & Retail Trade (+17%) industry sector, it is 10 percentage points stronger year-over-year.

Manufacturing employers report a hopeful Outlook at +17%, with the strongest forecast since Q3 2008, representing an improvement of 5 and 10 percentage points both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year.

“A slower external trading environment and softer consumer demand from the U.S. and Europe have impacted the Manufacturing sector. We expect to encounter additional challenges with worker shortages, rising wages and competition from other low-cost regions all combining to further weaken hiring confidence in the Manufacturing sector,” explained Chui.

Hiring expectations in the Finance, Insurance & Real Estate sector also strengthened. Employers report a respectable outlook of +24% — a moderate increase of six and seven percentage points respectively over last quarter and the same quarter this time last year.

“Going forward, we can continue see employment prospects in a generally positive light, particularly in the Accounting, Banking and Services sectors where we observe growing demand for talent with specific skill sets in wealth management, accounting and audit, and telemarketing and frontline sales with superb customer services skills,” Chui said.

Globally, nearly 64,000 employers in 32 of the 39 countries and territories surveyed expect positive hiring activity in the first quarter of 2011. Forecasts are strongest in India, China, Taiwan, Brazil, Turkey and Singapore. In contrast, employers in Greece, the Czech Republic, Austria, Ireland, Spain and Romania report the weakest and only negative forecasts globally.