Strange but true fact: the rest of the world is a better place to look for a job than in the “greatest country in the world” according to a new quarterly survey of expected future hiring by business:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A forward-looking measure of hiring intentions dipped slightly in the United States even as it improved in many other countries, according to a quarterly survey by Manpower Inc.
The survey offers a hint that jobs in Europe and Asia may recover earlier than in the United States, but it also raises questions about whether such a recovery could be cut short without the support of U.S. consumers, Manpower said. […]
“Companies are still not going to be in hiring mode,” said Manpower Chief Executive Jeff Joerres. “They are in cautious mode.”
A mark of that caution is that two-thirds of U.S. employers plan no change to staffing, a higher proportion than is typical, he added. […]
Manpower’s survey, together with recent labor market and industrial output data, suggest Asia and Europe will emerge from recession before any U.S. recovery. Joerres said consumers in Asia and Europe did not need to curtail their spending to the same extent as their American counterparts.
“You look at major countries like the UK, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, they’re all up,” Joerres said. “Their economies haven’t had the same hits. Other than Spain, you didn’t have a housing market as bad as this.”
I wonder. Could the ridiculously high cost of health care for their American employees have anything to do with why American forms are more reluctant to commit to new hires here in the good old US of A? It certainly can’t help matters, now can it? Just a thought, folks, just a thought.
