Manufacturing employers in Canada will be hiring — but at a cautious pace

Canadian employers expect a hopeful hiring climate for the first quarter of 2010, according to the latest results of the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey. Employers in manufacturing industries anticipate a cautiously optimistic hiring climate with a "net employment outlook" around four to five percent.

With seasonal variations removed from the survey data, the overall "net employment outlook" in all industries polled sits at 13 percent, which improves six percentage points from the previous quarter when employers reported an employment outlook of seven percent.

Manufacturing, however, is lower than the overall number.

Employers in the non-durable manufacturing sector expect a fair hiring climate with an outlook of five percent. This is a slight decline from the previous quarter when employers reported an outlook of six percent. It is also a decrease from the same time last year when the outlook was 11 percent.

In the durable-goods manufacturing sector, employers anticipate a hiring climate with an outlook of four percent. In this case, the outlook is an improvement from the flat environment reported in the previous quarter, but is weaker than the same time last year, which was at nine percent.

The whole survey — which looked at several sectors, from real estate and finance to construction and wholesale trade — of more than 1,900 Canadian employers reveals that 15 percent plan to increase their payrolls in the first quarter of 2010 while 13 per cent anticipate cutbacks and 70 percent of employers expect to maintain their current staffing levels.

"This quarter’s Net Employment Outlook indicates that the modest hiring climate reported in the previous quarter will improve in the first quarter of 2010," says Lori Rogers, vice-president of operations for Manpower Canada. "Employers are telling us that they plan to hire but at a more conservative pace than during the same time last year."

The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey is conducted quarterly to measure employers’ intentions to increase or decrease the number of employees in their workforce during the next quarter. It is based on interviews with more than 72,000 public and private employers worldwide and is considered a highly respected economic indicator.
www.manpower.ca