Optimism in the labor market for the 1st semester of 2008

The results of the first round of the RCI survey for 2008 have just been announced. The survey is conducted every six months and its main objective is to explore the perceptions and the trends of the companies regarding their recruitment processes and methodologies for the next semester.

The main conclusions from the first round (covering the period until June 2008) are the following:
- Companies, at their majority, are expected to increase their activities of attracting and recruiting new personnel, with the exception of construction industry, which appear to be less optimistic on employing new personnel the next six months.
- More than half of the companies of the sample are expected to increase the number of their employees during the next six months (approx. 58.3%).
- The majority of participating companies (41.7%) expect that salaries will be increased more or less equal to the collective employment agreements (up to 6%). Yet, a respectable percentage of the participants (27,5%), expect salaries to be increased by more than 6%. 
- The percentage of the companies that are expected to select young graduates / junior level employees, as well as specialised personnel is very high (more than 65% and 40% respectively).
- Companies are expected to look for new personnel mostly in the fields of Sales, Customer Service, Marketing, Accounting & Finance and IT. It is worth mentioning that there is an increase in the trend of recruiting people for the HR Departments. 
- However, companies expect more difficulties in finding the right people for the vacant positions, especially comparing to the survey results of the last semester.
- Companies, at their majority, appear optimistic for their future (75% of the sample). 
- The methods/tools most commonly used by the companies during the process of attracting and selecting new personnel, appear to be the job searching websites, the curriculum vitae database inside the companies and the internal search methods. There is also a good percentage of companies though, that prefer to publish newspaper ads.
- Recruitment Managers require candidates with certified advanced knowledge of IT, except for the cases they are looking for professionals such as receptionists, warehouse workers and store salesmen, where basic knowledge is adequate.

The 1st round of the Survey was conducted during December 2007-January 2008, with the support of ECDL Hellas and with the collaboration of SEV. More than 1800 invitations were sent to companies based in Greece. In total, 213 companies, 63% Greek and 37% multinational, completed the online questionnaire. 11% of the respondents are companies from the telecommunication sector, 21% are manufacturing companies, 13% provide services, while 19% of the companies are commercial. Representative companies from the banking sector, construction industry, tourism, logistics and Media also participated in the survey (percentages varied from 2 to 8%). Concisely, 94% of the companies were private, with the vast majority based in Attica (74.4%) and the rest of the companies (25.6%) based in other Greek areas. Concerning the size of the companies that participated in the survey, 43.2 % were companies with less than 100 employees, 19.2% were companies with 200-499 employees, 16.9% were companies with more than 1000 employees, while 10.8% were companies with 100 to 199 employees.

The results of the 1st semester of 2008 were quite similar to the results of 2007, with the exception of construction industry sector, which show a moderate optimism for the recruitment of new personnel. The general signs of the labour market remain consistent among all companies, from all industries and do not show great changes. However, there appears to be a slight increase in the optimism of the companies. Therefore, the general Recruitment Index remains in high levels, the highest ones of the last one and a half year..

The collection of data for the 2nd semester of 2008 will take place during June-July 2008. (You may download the complete report with the results of the survey). For more information on the survey please visit:  www.alba.edu.gr/rci  or contact Mr. Panagiotis Tarsinos, e-mail: [email protected], tel.:  210 8964531.