Brighter outlook for jobs in Q1: Manpower poll

With the traditional boom season approaching, Taiwanese employers reported stronger hiring intentions for the first quarter next year than 20 other countries survey, according to an opinion poll released yesterday.

Of the 1,405 employers surveyed in this country, 28 percent planned to increase their headcount in the coming quarter, 6 percent expected a decrease in staffing demands and 46 percent plan to maintain their current payrolls, said Dennis Lee (李崇領), general manager of Manpower Services (Taiwan) Co, during a press briefing.

FIGURES

This resulted in a "net employment outlook" figure -- which is calculated by subtracting the number of employers planning to reduce staffing levels from the number planning to hire staff -- of 22 percent, a moderate increase of 6 percentage points from the fourth quarter, the report said.

Among the six major industries interviewed, the finance, insurance and real estate sectors reported the most hiring activity for the next quarter with a net employment outlook of 25 percent, followed by the manufacturing and service sectors -- both at 23 percent.

The weakest staffing demand is anticipated by the mining and construction sector, at 15 percent.

The wholesale and retail trade reported the largest quarter-to-quarter outlook improvement of 12 percentage points, the survey said.

"The changes are a result of seasonal factors," Lee said. "Issuance of year-end bonuses and `red envelopes' in the first quarter, when the Lunar New Year holiday falls, naturally leads to a surge of domestic capital and stimulates retail businesses as well as the financial sector, which will focus on developing personal-finance services to boost company performances."

GLOBAL SURVEY

The global quarterly report gathered data from more than 45,000 employers in 23 countries across Asia, the Americas and Europe.

India continued to report the strongest hiring intentions next quarter with a net employment outlook of 27 percent, followed by New Zealand at 24 percent and then Taiwan. In stark contrast, Austria, Germany and Italy showed negative hiring expectations, the report said.

Commenting on the growing global trend of hiring temporary workers, Lee said Taiwan is still an emerging market for such flexible workforce arrangements.

He said there are 78,000 people working as temps, or 0.81 percent of Taiwan's overall employees, compared with 3.74 percent in Japan, 8.49 percent in the US and 15.99 percent in EU.

TEMPS

The Council for Economic Plan-ning and Development has predicted that Taiwan's population of temporary workers would surge to 300,000 by 2008 as enterprises try to reduce operating costs and focus on developing their core business segments.

Lee said the financial, manufacturing and service sectors have been the most mature industries to hire the most temps in this country. He said the temp market is expected to expand in the coming years as flexible working hours prove attractive.