Jobs confidence falls to record low

Western Australian employers have recorded the largest decline in recruitment confidence, with the state’s heavy reliance on the resources sector from markets such as China, Korea and India prompting Treasurer Wayne Swan to warn that the mining boom, which has sustained the country’s economy for the best part of a decade, may be coming to an end.

This was one of the findings to emerge in the latest Hudson Report Employment Expectations report, with the survey’s release coinciding with an announcement yesterday by mining giant BHP Billiton that it would be shedding 2,100 jobs locally.

“The fact that demand from these countries [China, Korea and India] is slowing quicker than expected is having a significant impact on confidence across all sectors in the state,” Hudson chief executive officer Mark Steyn said.

While employer confidence across the country has fallen to a record low, NSW remained the least optimistic for jobs’ growth, with only 18.1 per cent of employers intending to grow their permanent staff count, 63 per cent saying they will maintain permanent staffing levels and 19.9 per cent intending to reduce staff numbers. These figures indicate that more employers intend to decrease headcount than increase it.

Steyn said the negative sentiment in NSW was a reflection of the heavy concentration of banking and financial services companies based in Sydney, which had so far been the hardest hit sector as a result of the global financial crisis.

The report, which is a national survey of 7,280 hiring managers, highlighted the construction, property and engineering sectors as having recorded the largest quarterly decline in employer confidence of any sector, falling 36.1 percentage points on last quarter and 50 percentage points compared to the first quarter of 2008.

Despite the recent job losses in Western Australia, employers still remain relatively optimistic for employment growth in the resources sector, along with utilities, healthcare, telecommunications and information technology. Employers were most pessimistic in financial services, retail, advertising/marketing/media, and manufacturing.

Steyn said that the global financial crisis had created an extreme level of uncertainty within the business community, which is making employers nervous about making long-term strategic decisions in hiring staff.