A new survey from Manpower suggests that dozens of Finnish employers will be looking to hire more employees this spring. The poll asked 620 businesses about their plans to take on or shed staff in the next April-June quarter.
Of the employers responding, 11 percent forecast that they will be hiring more workers, while just two percent say they will be downsizing. The clear majority, 87 percent say they believe their employee numbers will stay the same, however.
Employers from eight different sectors believe that things will pick up in their line of business, and representatives of seven sectors plan to hire more personnel.
Companies in financing, insurance, real estate and business services are most confident in the prospects for potentially adding workers this spring. In fact, their level of optimism in this area is the strongest it’s been in four years.
Other areas of business that say they might be hiring soon include the hospitality sector and energy and water services.
Conversely, businesses that indicate they might be making staff redundant in the next few months are associated with mining and excavation.
Small firms wary, mid-sized companies bullish
Small companies with fewer than 10 people on the payroll are most wary of making hiring promises, while businesses with between 50 and 249 workers expect steady growth. Larger firms with at least 250 employees are almost as optimistic as the medium-sized companies, according to the survey.
The Manpower barometer suggests that optimism about future business growth is strongest in southern Finland, while firms in the west and east are most cautious. In the northern part of the country (including the business hub of Oulu), companies predict there is a greater chance that they will have to resort to redundancies than be able to hire more employees.
These regional differences were essentially the same in last year’s Manpower survey, but business outlooks are relatively brighter everywhere but in the north.
The multinational employment and temp agency Manpower regularly conducts a survey on business hiring prospects in countries where it operates, interviewing private and public sector employers. The Finnish branch of the company has carried out survey in Finland since 2012.
Respondents were asked to forecast how their total staff numbers would develop over the next three months, as compared to the previous quarter.
