Employers buoyant about prospects of hiring more

By JULIE MIDDLETON

The news is good on the jobs front: more than half the country's employers expect to hire new permanent staff in the next six months.

Job hunters in communications and marketing, information technology and government are expected to benefit most, according to a new study.

The research also finds that companies' main strategies to lock in key performers are career development programmes which help to assess skills and preferences.

The bullish outlook comes from the TMP (formerly Morgan and Banks) New Zealand job index survey, carried out every six months.

The survey, which came out on Monday and was reported in the Business Herald, says that 45.2 per cent of employers expect to hire extra staff in the next six months.

This is up 9.4 per cent on the same period last year.

Just 11.2 per cent of employers are planning to reduce their staff.

"There is a reasonable amount of economic confidence out here," says TMP's strategy director, Dr Kaye McAulay.

Although she admits that the survey's select sample size - 1603 hirers among TMP's 4500 clients - means it can't be seen as the final word on national trends, the fact that TMP's large client base covers many of the blue-chip companies of interest to the career-minded still makes it an important indicator.

The lower North Island is the only region where employers are less optimistic than they have been in the past.

"This has more to do with IT and telecommunications companies putting a freeze on hiring," says McAulay.

"In Wellington, there are a lot of financial institutions that are not expanding.

"And there is still some rationalisation going on in finance, especially in banking.

"Most banks are still looking at technology to bring further efficiencies."

Nationally, employers feeling the most buoyant about further hiring - "above national all-industry expectations," says the report - are in the communications and marketing industries, where optimism is up 50 per cent from the previous survey period.

Construction, property, chemical and oil industries also record "pronounced surges in optimism."

However, employers feeling pessimistic about their ability to hire in the next six months include those in the media, legal, electronics and manufacturing sectors.

The pessimistic outlook within the legal sector, according to McAulay, has to do with "a concerted poaching effort" by British law firms in the past 12 months.

The study also asks some one-off questions, including queries about the strategies companies are using to retain the services of their top performers.

The most likely tactic is specific and formal career development (29 per cent), much of it using on-line evaluation and assessment tools.

Flexible working conditions are cited by 23 per cent of employers, mentoring by 17.7 per cent, share options by 9.7 per cent and a "cafeteria approach" - trade-offs such as more leave for less money - by 6.2 per cent. Career development is most widely used in retail (33.9 per cent), construction and property (33.6 per cent), and chemicals/oils (33.3 per cent). Flexible working conditions are used most widely in the electronics industry (30.6 per cent), and mentoring in the legal industry (25.6 per cent).

Share options are more likely to be used to lock in star staff in the chemicals and oils sector (17.6 per cent), advertising and marketing (16.3 per cent), and telecommunications (15.8 per cent).

And the cafeteria approach is most likely to be used by media employers (14.8 per cent) and tourism (12.9).

McAulay says that a lot of the "specific, formal" career development tools companies are using are on-line systems allowing staff to evaluate strengths, weaknesses and preferences.

It's an area that has taken off only in the past year or so.

"Companies are using these with their staff members to make sure they are in a job which fits their skills, making sure they are happy," she says.

McAulay describes this approach as often more successful than share options and perks.

"Employees need to feel they are being cared for.

"It's a reaction against the big global Machine that spits out people when it doesn't want them."

The rise of on-line tools is also linked to the beefing up of human resources departments and increasing emphasis on human potential rather than technology.

According to McAulay: "People are the big issue."