Employer hiring optimism surges in Australia for 2010

The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey of over 2000 Australian employers indicates hiring intentions for the next three months have dramatically improved, with the seasonally adjusted Net Employment Outlook at +19%, up from +8% in the last quarter. The surge is due to an increase in the proportion of employers planning to increase hiring (26%, up from 18% in Q4 2009) and a fall in the number planning to decrease hiring (7%, compared to 9% in Q4 2009).

The figures indicate that job seekers should start the new year with employment opportunities similar to those seen prior to the global downturn.

“These results confirm the progress towards recovery we began to see in the final quarter of 2009,” said Lincoln Crawley, Managing Director, Manpower Australia & New Zealand. “Australia appears to have turned a corner, with hiring intentions closer to the pace we saw before the downturn hit.

“Employers are gearing up for growth and looking to put the right people in place to drive that growth. Buoyed by the recovering economy and revitalised job market, those who stayed put during the downturn are now ready to look elsewhere - especially if they were treated poorly. There will be a scramble for top talent and companies who aren’t prepared will miss out.”

Among the 35 countries surveyed, Australian employers report the sixth strongest first-quarter hiring plans, just behind India (+39%), Brazil (+31%), Singapore (+26%), Taiwan (+25%) and Costa Rica (+20%), and post one of the most notable quarter-over-quarter improvements in the Asia-Pacific region.

By comparison, employers in the US (+6%) and the UK (+0%) are still anticipating only modest hiring improvements.

“The Australian employment outlook reflects the fact that we have fared much better in the downturn, being one of the few developed countries to avoid a recession,” continued Crawley. “Hopefully, these figures indicate that Australia will be one of the first countries to enter a sustained recovery period.”

In Australia, hiring expectations are strongest in the Services sector (+24%, up from +13% last quarter). The weakest hiring expectations are from employers in the financial, insurance and real estate sectors (+12%), which had a moderate five-percentage-point improvement. In almost every sector, the outlook has improved quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, the exception being financial, insurance and real estate, still three percentage points weaker than the forecast posted this time last year.

While the results of the survey are good news for job seekers, Crawley issued a warning for employers: “While the downturn masked the pain of the talent shortage, it never actually went away - and it’s definitely set to return. So now is the time for companies to get their talent strategy in order, before they face the twin pressures of needing to hire more people and watching an exodus of existing employees.

“Recent Manpower research revealed the drivers of employee attraction and retention as being competitive pay, career opportunities, work-life balance and management quality. These should be focus points for organisations looking to retain existing employees and attract new talent. On the other hand, employers who do nothing will see a rise in staff churn in 2010, as employees pluck up the courage to move on to new opportunities.”