Employee numbers will be cut sharply in many Western nations as companies pare costs to survive the global financial crisis, according to an international recruitment company boss.
Layoff plans are expected to gain momentum over the next six weeks as companies finish their budget-making exercises for the coming year, said Jeffrey Joerres, chief executive of US-based Manpower.
“Some of the companies will be acting pre-emptively [in reducing their payrolls]. Even if they haven’t yet been hard hit by the downturn, they’ll feel they must act conservatively,” Joerres said in an interview.
“They’ll feel they have to be responsible because they feel they can see trouble coming for their revenues and bottom lines,” he said on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting in New Delhi, which wound up earlier this week.
“We expect the [job] situation will get much worse” he said.
He said unemployment could hit 7.5 percent or even 8 percent in the US — it’s now at a four-year peak of 6.5 percent, already slightly higher than in the last US recession in 2003.
In Western Europe, jobless rates will also rise, he said.
French unemployment could hit 9 percent, up from 7.2 percent, said Joerres, who heads the world’s second biggest staffing company behind Swiss-based Adecco, recruiting 5 million people annually in 80 countries.
Manpower, which is also feeling the impact of the crisis, reported last month it had swung to a third-quarter net loss of US$43 million from a profit of US$132 million in the same period a year earlier.
India, whose growth is slowing from scorching 9 percent levels, is beginning to feel the “pain” of the downturn, he said.
Manpower’s Indian operations, which represent less than 1 percent of its global US$21 billion business, have witnessed a 15 percent to 20 percent decline due to the “current meltdown,” Joerres said.
India’s economic growth is expected to slow to around 7 percent this year, and to as low as 5.5 percent next year.
“The speed with which this downturn has happened has taken us by surprise,” Joerres said.
The financial crisis has shown there is no “decoupling,” he said, referring to the widespread notion that the economies of big emerging nations would be insulated from any US downturn.
“The US first felt a series of shocks but it was slower, then Europe dropped faster, now it is Japan” which has slipped into recession, he said.
“The Middle East is also facing challenges — in Dubai, in construction for instance,” he said.
“It’s all showing that no-one is immune,” Joerres said.
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
A bipartisan group of US representatives have introduced a draft US-Taiwan Defense Innovation Partnership bill, aimed at accelerating defense technology collaboration between Taiwan and the US in response to ongoing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The bill was introduced by US representatives Zach Nunn and Jill Tokuda, with US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman John Moolenaar and US Representative Ashley Hinson joining as original cosponsors, a news release issued by Tokuda’s office on Thursday said. The draft bill “directs the US Department of Defense to work directly with Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense through their respective
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA
RSS