The HumanEdge Global Hiring Intentions Survey is sent out quarterly to a selected group of 1,000 business and Human Resource executives across Canada. The survey received an overwhelming response and very high participation.
Based on the responses, we can provide you with a comprehensive, consolidated perspective of Canadian business leaders on the growth and revenue prospects of their companies and the overall hiring intentions of their firms for the upcoming quarter (Q1 2016).
We are also able to identify which skills are currently in highest demand and which skills are proving to be the most difficult to recruit.
Finally, we are able to provide you information on the anticipated compensation changes of survey participants in response to their projected growth prospects, hiring needs and recruitment challenges.
The key findings from the survey are as follows:
- Expected Changes in Revenue
The majority of respondents (54.5%) expect no significant change to their revenues in the upcoming quarter. Interestingly, more participants expect their revenues to increase in the next quarter (14.3% by more than 5% and 11.7% by more than 10%) than respondents who expect their revenues to decrease (10.4% to decrease by 5% and a further 9.1% to decline by more than 10%). This may be due to the positive impact of improving US demand on Canadian exporters and the reduced impact of the slowdown in the Oil & Gas industry going forward.While the majority of industries expect no significant change in revenues next quarter, it is worth noting the construction industry’s expectations for revenue decreases of more than 10%, and the real estate industry’s expectations for revenue decreases of more than 5%. - Expected Changes in Staffing
Consistent with the revenue prospects of their companies, 67.2% of respondents expect no significant change to staffing levels. However, 16.4% of respondents expect to increase their staffing levels by more than 5%. This may be due to an increasingly tight labour market for specialized skills in Ontario and BC. Not surprisingly, the only industry that expects a significant decrease of staffing levels (more than 10%) is the Oil and Gas sector. - Top Recruitment Priorities
The top 3 recruitment priorities of respondents were in the Operations (37.2%), Technology (30.0%) and Management (30.0%) functions. By contrast, the lowest priority areas for recruitment were R&D (7.5%), HR (7.0%) and Manufacturing (4.5%).Perhaps surprisingly, almost 30% of respondents identified Management as a priority recruitment area. By size, the smallest companies (<100 employees) listed Management as their most critical need while mid-sized companies (101-500 employees) indicated Operations to be their most critical need.Within the Financial Services industry, respondents stated that Information Technology was their top recruitment priority. - Most Challenging Areas to Recruit For
The top 3 most challenging functional areas to recruit for were Operations, Sales and Management. Recruitment of Information Technology professionals was also identified as a major challenge.While the smallest and largest organizations (1 – 100 employees and over 1000 employees) identified management as the most challenging areas to recruit for, mid-sized firms (101 – 500 employees and 501 – 1000 employees) listed their greatest recruitment challenge to be Operations related skills.The Financial Services industry identified Information Technology as the most challenging area to recruit for. - Expected Changes in Salary Budgets
Regardless of the size of the organization or it’s industry, the majority of respondents agreed that they expect no significant change to their salary budgets next quarter. Overall, the greatest salary increases next quarter are expected to be within the Management, Operations, Information Technology, Sales and Finance while the lowest salary increases are expected in Human Resources, Manufacturing and Administration.
A more detailed breakdown of these findings can be seen in the charts on this document.