Taiwan is likely to see the strongest staffing demand in nearly five years in the first quarter of next year, a report released yesterday by Manpower Inc said.
Of the 1,066 employers polled this quarter, 28 percent said they would increase their staff in the coming quarter, 6 percent planned a decrease in hiring and 65 percent expected to maintain their current payrolls, the Milwaukee-based employment services provider said.
The latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey indicated that next quarter will be the most promising hiring environment for employers in this country since the second quarter of 2005.
The report said the improving environment is particularly good news for potential job seekers as the results in a “net employment outlook” figure — calculated by subtracting the number of employers planning to reduce staffing levels from the number planning to hire workers — stands at a strong 25 percent for the first quarter of next year, up 6 percentage points from the current quarter and 28 percentage points higher from the first quarter of this year.
“Many are telling us they plan to recruit staff in the next three months — especially to strengthen their sales forces,” Terence Liu (劉玿廷), general manager of Manpower Services (Taiwan) Co, said in an e-mailed statement. “However, employers are not hiring indiscriminately; they are evaluating candidates carefully and most of the recruitment process is much longer than before.”
The jobless rate fell for the second month to a four-month low of 5.96 percent in October from 6.04 percent in September, compared to a record 6.13 percent in August, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) reported on Nov. 23.
The number of people losing jobs dropped by 8,000 people to 653,000 in October from September, while the number of the employed rose 32,000 to 10.31 million people.
The survey found employers in the transportation and utilities sector continued to be the most optimistic for the fourth consecutive quarter, with the net employment outlook rising 1 percentage point to 29 percent for the first quarter. That was followed by the manufacturing sector with 27 percent. In contrast, the retail and wholesale trade will have the weakest staffing demand, at 12 percent.
The other segments — the finance, insurance and real estate sectors (21 percent); the service sector (23 percent) and the mining and construction sectors (18 percent) — all reported higher “net employment outlook” figures from a year ago, the report said.
“Employers in the Transportation & Utilities and Manufacturing sectors report the strongest hiring expectations in the months ahead. Most of the companies have to fill vacancies in critical positions, especially in sales representative positions,” Liu wrote in his e-mail.
Employers in 25 of 35 countries and territories surveyed expect positive hiring activity in the quarter ahead, Manpower said.
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