Job Sentiment Still Strong Despite Decline
Newcastle Herald
Thursday March 30, 2006
THE number of Hunter employers expecting to hire new staff has fallen, but the region's "employment sentiment" remains nearly 10 per cent above national and state levels.
These are the key findings of the latest Hudson report into employment and human resources trends.The Hudson report interviewed 8345 companies nationwide including 328 Hunter employers.The report found that 46 per cent of Newcastle employers expected to raise staff levels in the final three months of the financial year, but 7.3 per cent expected to cut staff.This gave a net employment sentiment of 38.7 per cent.This was 9.8 percentage points down on the previous quarter, but it remained higher than at any time since early 2003.Hudson's Newcastle general manager Tim Rayner said there had been a significant decline in employment confidence but the overall outlook remained strong.The most positive sector was financial services and insurance, which the report said was "an industry not usually associated with Newcastle". A net 59.4 per cent of interviewed employers in this sector said that they expected to hire staff in the coming three months, a rise of 2.6 percentage points on the previous survey.
© 2006 Newcastle Herald
Share This