Hiring outlook stable

CareerBuilder Canada’s 2010 Canadian Mid-Year Job Forecast survey of more than 200 private sector hiring managers and human resource professionals finds that 58% of respondents plan to boost their workforce between July and December.

“Employers’ confidence levels are returning, as Statistics Canada has reported consistent monthly increases in jobs on a national level in the first half of the year,” says Brent Rasmussen, president of CareerBuilder North America. “While companies plan to hire more workers in the second half of the year, they report they will do so gradually. In addition, they will continue to focus on revenue generating positions and maintaining their current staff levels in an effort to facilitate growth and sustain their businesses through the rest of 2010.”

The survey identified four trends for the latter half of 2010:

1. Emerging jobs: Employers are looking to fill positions that are relatively new to the workforce such as social media, green energy, cyber security, global relations and healthcare reform.

2. Retention: Employers are fearful of losing key talent as the economy improves, with 46% of hiring managers listing the issue as a major concern.

3. War for talent: Despite an abundant labour pool, more than half of hiring managers (54%) reported that they still have positions for which they can’t find qualified candidates. Problem areas include IT, customer service and sales.

4. Restoring compensation: A small number (12%) of employers reported they instituted pay cuts in the last 12 months. Of these employers, 34% were restoring pay levels in the first half of the year, 31% in the latter half and 14% in 2011 and 2012.

Workers’ perspective
The slow economic recovery is prompting workers to re-evaluate their employment situations after a year of fear, trepidation, and increased work loads. Twenty-two percent of workers reported they have a worse opinion of their employer since the recession, while 14% have a better opinion and 64% stayed the same.

Almost one-third (29%) plan to pursue new job opportunities when the economy shows more improvement, while 31% of all workers are likely to leave their organizations in the next 12 months.

According to the survey, the impending talent flight is due to several factors, including feelings of being over-worked, negative changes in the work environment and harboring resentment over other workers being laid off.

Almost one-third of workers (31%) said they feel overqualified for their current jobs while 43% who are looking for or planning to look for a new job cited a lack of interesting work as one of the main motivators for changing employers.

Show me the money
Not surprisingly, when asked what their employers could do to retain them as employees, workers pointed to increased compensation, followed by employee recognition, increased training, realistic performance expectations and manageable workloads.

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