Mumbai: The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey for the first quarter of 2006 released by Manpower India reveals that India continues to lead all 23 countries surveyed this quarter, with a positive overall net employment outlook growth of 27 per cent. This means that the hiring intentions of employers in the first quarter of the coming year will be very strong, even though the figure shows a decrease of 13 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2005. Overall, it shows that India's employment outlook remains healthy.

For the first time since the survey was launched in India, the finance, insurance and retail industry sector emerged as the most optimistic sector for the quarter, with a net employment outlook growth of 32 per cent, surpassing the Services sector.

Net Employment Outlook is derived by taking the percentage of employers anticipating total employment to increase, and subtracting the percentage expecting to see a decrease in employment in their own enterprises in the next quarter. Of the 4,288 employers surveyed, 30 per cent felt that there would be an increase in hiring and only 3 per cent felt that there would be a decrease (47 per cent felt that there would be no change in hiring, while 20 per cent were unsure).

The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey covers employers in seven industry sectors — finance, insurance and real estate; manufacturing; mining and construction; public administration and education; services; transportation and utilities; as well as wholesale and retail trade.

Positive hiring intentions are expected across all seven industry sectors in the quarter, with employers in the finance, insurance and real estate sector being most optimistic (net positive employment outlook of 32 per cent). This was followed by services (30 per cent), transportation and utilities (27 per cent), manufacturing (25 per cent), wholesale and retail Trade (25 per cent) and public administration and education (24 per cent). Employers in the mining and construction sector are relatively less optimistic, but are overall positive at 21 per cent.

However, all industry sectors reported quarter-over-quarter declines, with the greatest decrease anticipated in public administration and education sector with a 19 percentage points quarter-over-quarter decrease. The services sector had the highest employment outlook in Quarter 3 and Quarter 4 of 2005, and showed a decline of 15 percentage points. The smallest declines were seen in transport and utilities (5 percentage points) and wholesale and retail trade (8 percentage points).

Tarun Bali, executive director, Manpower India, stated: "Hiring intentions are cautious in comparison to the previous quarter, but without any visible negative trends." He added: "With India's sustained economy growth, there is a pressing need for employers to quickly and critically examine their recruitment and retention strategies to make them more effective in future, because the shortage of skills is expected to get worse." The survey is available for free download from Manpower India's website.

Employment outlook in all four regions is positive, with the North and the East most optimistic, followed the South. The West is steady. The South was the most optimistic region in the last two quarters, but has yielded the top position to the North. All four regions have shown a quarter-over-quarter decline, but the East has lost only 1 percentage point. The net employment outlook for the South, West and North has softened by 18, 17 and 8 percentage points respectively.

Manpower India is the leader in the employment services market in India, providing end-to-end solutions for senior and middle management recruitments, temporary and contract staffing solutions, and managed services. It has a team of 380 consultants in 17 offices across 9 major cities.