SOFIA (Bulgaria), December 12 (SeeNews) – Bulgarian employers will be looking to increase staffing levels during the first quarter of 2018, despite difficulties in finding suitable candidates, recruitment company ManpowerGroup said on Tuesday.
“Specialized skills in IT, engineering and sales remain in high demand but companies are facing a new challenge – a critical lack of blue-collar workers for general operational business activities,” Nadia Vassileva, ManpowerGroup Bulgaria managing director, said in a statement.
According to the latest edition of the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, the so-called 'net employment outlook' for the first quarter stands at 14%, remaining flat compared to the previous quarter and improving by 2 percentage points year-on-year. The net employment outlook is measured by taking the percentage of employers anticipating total employment to increase and subtracting from this the percentage expecting a decrease in employment.
The survey was conducted in 25 EMEA countries.
Among the 621 surveyed employers, 14% reported they are planning an increase of staffing levels, while 5% said they expect a decrease.
The construction sector employers reported the most optimistic outlook of +29%, up by 5 percentage points quarter-on-quarter and 18 percentage points higher year-on-year.
In line with the tendency so far, large and medium-sized companies plan the biggest workforce gains during the next quarter, with outlooks of +27% and +15%, respectively.
At the regional level, Varna reports the most positive outlook of +19%, which is 4 percentage points higher compared to the fourth quarter of 2017 and up 8 percentage points on the year.