Executives On Global Hiring for the 2nd Half of 2014

LinkedIn recently surveyed thousands of their Director level and above members and asked about their economic confidence and hiring intentions heading out of the first half of the year. Over 13,000 responded and painted an interesting picture.

The 15 countries included in the LI survey included India, the UK, Germany, The US, Sweden, Canada, Spain, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, Netherlands, Brazil, Italy, Belgium and France. The picture painted demonstrates tepid confidence in the global economy with mixed feelings on future hiring.

Economic Outlook For Their Home Country

When asked about the economic outlook of their own country most survey respondents reported that they did not expect the outlook to improve. There was a brighter outlook in 1 country, India leading the way at 90%, a slightly positive outlook in the UK 73% and the Netherlands 66% and a marginally hapy outlook from Spain 58%. About 50% of executives in Germany, Sweden, Japan and the US reported an expectation of hiring growth. Canadian executives were not enthusiastic about future growth with only 35% expecting improvements over the next year. There was even less enthusiasm in Australia (25%), France (13%) and Brazil (10%).

Expectations by Industry

Optimism about the growth of their own industry was fairly solid across the board. Executives in Staffing (85%) and Tech-Software (84%) expected the most growth; executives in Telecom, Professional Services, Arch/Engineering, Manufacturing, Transportation, Tech-hardware, Retail, Consumer Goods, Oil/Energy and Media/Entertainment all ranged in the 70%-78% range.

Hiring Expectations Outlook

Leading the way in expecting to hire in the next few months were executives in India at 64% followed by the UK at 51%. Fewer than half of the executives in Germany (47%), The US (47%), Sweden (45%) and Canada (40%) expected to hire in the near future. Among the remaining 9 countries fewer than 36% (between 32%-36%) had hiring on their radars.

Canadian Executives Not All That Enthusiastic About Growth

Overall 35% of Canadian executives expected the global economy to improve and the same percentage, 35% expected the Canadian economy to improve. This compared to the US at 44% expecting an improved global economy and 45% expecting improvement in the US economy.

Good News for Staffing Agencies

What does this mean to Canadian organizations? The ups and downs of the economy are telling staffing agency executives that they should be prepared to hire. This means they expect organizations will need more staff, just not permanent or ongoing staff. As a result more organizations may be turning to staffing agencies or the ever-growing contingent and precarious workforce to meet their needs for the remainder of 2014 and maybe beyond.  There are many pros and cons for organizations who hire from staffing agencies but as this is a growing trend organizations would be wise to consider the impact on hiring and management from a temporary staff.

Building steps to manage, train and supervise temporary workers into your organization may be one option to address tepid hiring plans from Canadian executives.