Up to 11% of Munster employers are anticipating the need to hire more staff over the next three months according to latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.

That 11% figure is a notable improvement of 8% in quarter over-quarter-results but a considerable decrease of 11 percentage points is also reported year-over-year.

Construction industry employers meanwhile are anticipating an optimistic quarter-over-quarter improvement in hiring activity from -1 Q1 2008 to a positive 8% in Q2 2008. A slight decline in hiring activity, of just three percentage points, can be seen in year-over-year comparisons.

The overall 'Net Employment Outlook' figure is calculated by taking the percentage of employers anticipating total employment to increase and subtracting from this the percentage expecting to see a decrease in employment at their location in the next quarter. Ireland's 'Net Employment Outlook' for Q2 2008 is a 'reassuring 6%', up two percentage points from Q1 2008 however down a disappointing 12% in year-over-year comparisons.

However, this figure of 6% reveals the first recorded improvement in the national hiring outlook since Q4 2006 as the employment outlook has undergone a continuous decline over the past 12 months from 21% in Q1 2007 to the last quarter's figure of 4% for Q1 2008. The Pharmaceutical industry recorded the strongest hiring outlook of 21% followed by employers in the Transport, Storage and Communication sector, who are predicting a hiring outlook of 18% over the next three months.

The weakest hiring intentions meanwhile were reported by employers in the Mining and Quarrying sector which recorded a negative outlook of -5%, the weakest outlook for this sector since Q4 2003 and both quarter over quarter and year over year, the employment outlook for this industry has fallen significantly by 8 and 19 percentage points, respectively. Wholesale, Retail and Trade employers have seen a moderate decrease in their hiring outlook for Q2 2008 with the net employment figure falling from 2% last quarter to a muted 1% for the next three months. However, a dramatic decrease of 16% can be seen in year-over-year comparisons in this sector.

Conducted quarterly, the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey measures employers' intentions to increase or decrease their workforces over the forthcoming quarter and is considered the most extensive, forward-looking employment survey in the world, gathering data from 55,199 employers across the globe each quarter.

In Ireland, the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey is conducted by interviewing a representative sample of 660 Irish employers. All survey participants were asked, "How do you anticipate total employment at your location to change in the three months to the end of June 2008 as compared to the current quarter?"

Jason Kennedy, Managing Director of Manpower Ireland, a leading provider of workforce management solutions says, "The results highlighted in the Q2 2008 Manpower Employment Outlook Survey are reassuring for the Irish economy as a whole. In spite of many warnings and gloomy forecasts the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, which speaks to employers directly, has shown that many employers are feeling positive about the future growth of their companies. Even in the construction industry which has been the focus of much controversy in the last six months, 8% of all employers in this sector are planning on hiring more staff in the coming quarter".

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