A Manpower report finds that the percentage of companies struggling to find talent has fallen, despite painful corporate anxieties in certain countries.
By Garry Kranz Comments 0 | Recommend 0
People Everywhere, but Little Talent in Sight: Skilled tradespeople are the most
highly sought group of workers globally, followed closely by accomplished sales
reps and technical workers in engineering, operations, production and
maintenance. The needs are uniform across countries and regions, according to
research by Manpower Inc., a staffing company in Milwaukee. Manpower’s survey
encompassed 43,000 companies in 32 nations. The findings present a dichotomy: On
the one hand, the number of firms acknowledging talent shortages fell from 41
percent in 2007 to 31 percent in 2008. Despite the cumulative drop, acquiring
skilled talent is a chronic problem in certain countries. In particular, this
problem is cited by nearly three-quarters of companies in Romania, 63 percent of
firms in Japan, 61 percent in Hong Kong, 57 percent in Singapore and 52 percent
in Australia. Notably, technicians, engineers and skilled manual trades emerged
as the three jobs most in demand in the Americas, replacing production
operators, sales reps and accounting staff.
Workforce Management contributing editor Garry Kranz is based in Richmond, Virginia. E-mail editors@workforce.com to comment.
Reproductions and distribution of the above article are strictly prohibited. To order reprints and/or request permission to use the article in full or partial format, please contact our Reprint Sales Manager at (732) 723-0569.
Comments
Guidelines: Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed
from the site. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies
or any other policies governing this site. You are fully responsible for the content you post.
= Member Only
