An Upbeat Global Employment Picture

The prospects for global employment seems to be materially improving, that's according to the Economist.

The Economist writes, (bold highlights added)

``FEARS of a “jobless recovery” in the West have abounded ever since the world economy returned from the abyss last year. For some, the latest quarterly survey from Manpower, a global employment-services company, brings timely good news. Of the 36 countries included in Manpower’s survey, employers in 30 of them are increasingly bullish about their hiring plans for the next three months compared with the third quarter of 2009. Only in five countries, all of them in debt-laden Europe, are employers expecting negative hiring activity over the next quarter. This compares favourably, however, to the seven European countries with a negative outlook just three months ago. The survey suggests that the BICs (Brazil, India and China) bounce will continue. The three countries, along with Taiwan, report the most positive hiring plans in the survey, with China reporting its strongest hiring plans since the survey began there in 2005."

Unlike the mainstream, I'm not a stickler of "employment" as the key measure of economic progress, because employment is just one of the many factors that contribute to capital accumulation or economic prosperity.

But if the survey is accurate then much of the world seems now on a mend or on an accelerating phase of cyclical recovery.

Decoupling In Global Employment?

Here is the Economist with a graph from a survey of global employment.


According to the Economist, (bold highlights mine)

``IN 27 out of 36 countries surveyed by Manpower, an employment-services firm, more companies said they expected to add jobs in the three months to the end of June than said they reckoned on reducing their workforce. The difference between the proportion of hirers and firers was highest in Brazil and India. Throughout Asia companies have become more optimistic about hiring than they were a year ago, most dramatically in Singapore but only slightly in Japan. Things look less rosy in Europe. In several countries, including Spain and Ireland, more companies expect to see cuts to their workforce than expect it to grow. Of the four countries where the outlook has darkened, three are in Europe."

My comment:

Again Asia and Emerging markets are likely to see more meaningful improvements on their domestic job markets compared to OECD economies. Such variance is especially amplified when compared to Europe.

As what we've been previously saying; fundamentally, the driving force of the macro picture appears to have shifted from the core (US and OECD) to the periphery (Emerging Markets).