Employers throughout Asia Pacific continue to keep a tight rein on the purse strings in 2009, as salary increases remain at low levels, according to an Asia Pacific Salary Increase Survey conducted by Hewitt Associates (NYSE:HEW), a global human resources consulting and outsourcing firm. This trend looks likely to continue in 2010 as base salaries are projected to rise only slightly in most Asia Pacific markets.

The Hewitt 2009/2010 salary increase survey sees a dramatic decline in salary increase in the two prominent markets of China & India for the first time over the last five years. The 2009 actual salary increase rate went down by 4 percent and 8 percent respectively, which is also the lowest salary increases recorded since 2005.
This year, there is no Asian market which experienced a double digit salary increase. India had the highest percentage pay rise in the region with the average overall salary increase at 6.3 percent. Indonesia ranks second, with the average overall salary increase at 6 percent, followed by China (4.5 percent) and the Philippines (4.3 percent).

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Tags: economic downturn, recession, compensation, asia pacific, talent

Categories: Research | The Economy

In these bleak times, companies are depending on their star performers as never before. Organizations need their top talent to be in peak form—firing on all cylinders—so they can succeed in a market that is the toughest in living memory. How are employers handling this challenge? In a word, badly.

To start with, leaders are seriously distracted. Caught between clamoring clients and vaporizing value, a CEO understandably might find it hard to focus on talent. People issues tend to translate into layoff strategies: How many should you let go? How should the cuts be distributed? Should you act surgically and strike deep or should you dribble out the reductions over time?

When it comes to talent management, CEOs are also hamstrung by outmoded thinking. In times like these—marked by massive losses and rising unemployment—it's tempting to imagine that there's no need to worry about motivating talent. People are so grateful to have a job, the conventional thinking goes, that they can be relied on to contribute 110%. Right? Wrong.

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Tags: economic downturn, recession, talent management

Categories: The Economy

There’s no doubt about it: the past year or so has been a lean time for most companies. And while there’s hope that the worst (economically speaking) might be behind us, we aren’t out of the woods yet. The dark days of the recession have spawned a troubling new issue, one that could cripple organizations even as we head into recovery. The looming problem? A widespread loss of employee engagement. 

“Even if companies haven’t literally lost their employees, many have lost them psychologically,” warns Jon Gordon, speaker, consultant, and author of the new book The Shark and the Goldfish: Positive Ways to Thrive During Waves of Change. “Too many Americans are beaten down, burned out, and completely de-motivated. And if leaders don’t strive to change that—to create a positive culture that energizes people—there will be dire consequences.” 

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Tags: new economy, employee engagement, morale, leadership

Categories: The Economy

As the unemployment rate catapulted upwards to nearly 10 percent over the past year, the importance of severance polices was prevalent at companies across the country. The 2009 BenchmarkPro results showed that 55.2 percent of companies surveyed currently have a severance policy in place.

Companies in the manufacturing industry report having severance policies at a rate of 66 percent, compared to the insurance industry, 61.9 percent. Healthcare offers severance at a rate of 53.6 percent, while utility companies offer it at 45.4 percent. Severance is offered least to employees at not-for-profits, 41.6 percent.

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Tags: new economy, unemployment, severance, layoffs

Categories: Research | The Economy

MAYNARD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New research from Monster.com and Human Capital Institute reveals a dramatic difference in how employers and workers perceive the impact of the current recession, potentially leading to employers facing mass talent drains as the labor market begins to turn. The reason – employers are vastly overrating the morale of their employees as 84 percent of those surveyed indicated a belief that their workforce is content to simply to have a job while only 58 percent of workers feel that way. Monster.com^® is the leading global online career and recruitment resource and flagship brand of Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW).

“Today’s employers feel that employees are loyal due to the economic times, but the reality is they are not,” said Katherine Jones, HCI Research Fellow. “Because of this, there is a strong likelihood that when the economy turns for the better, employers could find themselves with valued employees jumping ship. This places pressure on them to put retention measures in place now.”

“While this environment has created a prime opportunity to acquire top talent and increase selective hiring, it is also a time for employers to prepare their workforces strategically for moving forward in a redefined, healthier economy,” said Jesse Harriott, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer at Monster. “However, to do that, they need to better understand the mindset of their employees. As the economy rebounds, those workplaces that have not invested in their people could face a mass exodus of employees, potentially crippling the business.”

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Tags: economy, jobs, careers, engagement, morale

Categories: The Economy

The silver lining in a lousy economy is employee retention, but as economic prospects brighten, most firms are thinking about ways to retain talent, according to the latest study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) on the subject of organizational turnover and engagement. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into big raises for most employees, who have seen few pay raises of late.

In this down economy, the study, the full results of which are now available to i4cp members in both standard and interactive form, found that higher market performing companies are more than twice as likely to offer pay raises to keep key talent from walking out the door than are lower performers.

The study showed that 18% of high-performing organizations have already taken the step of increasing compensation levels to reduce turnover, compared to 7% of lower performers. Over the next six to 12 months, the same ratio of high performers (18%) plan to implement pay raises, while almost a quarter (24%) of lower performers have plans to do so.

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Tags: new economy, research, employee retention, employee engagement, turnover, performance

Categories: Research | The Economy

(From StarTribune.com) As he coasts toward probable reelection, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak can boast of something that hasn't happened since at least 1990: parity between the unemployment rates of the city and the seven-county metro.

Both averaged 5.1 percent last year, after several years of a steadily narrowing gap. The 13-county metropolitan unemployment rate was 5.2 percent.

Although there's no way to determine cause and effect, the gap started to close around the time Rybak began in his first term to beef up the city's investments in job placement and training.

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Tags: economy, jobs, careers, minneapolis

Categories: The Economy

The study, conducted in May 2009, analyzes the future importance and current performance of people management practices relative to a manufacturer’s business success. It also reveals the challenges manufacturers are facing with talent shortages and offers strategies to address them.

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Tags: skills gap, talent management, management, performance, economic downturn

Categories: Research | The Economy

(From the New York Times) Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve board, said on Sunday that the latest job report showing the nation’s unemployment at 9.8 percent was “pretty awful” and said he expected the figure to climb even higher.

“My own suspicion is that we’re going to penetrate the 10 percent barrier and stay there for a while before we start down,” he said in an appearance on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” on ABC.

He said he was particularly concerned about data in the employment report, released Friday, indicating that an increasing number of Americans have been unemployed for more than six months. That number increased in September by 450,000, reaching 5.4 million, according to the report from the Labor Department.

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Tags: economy, jobs, careers, unemployment, business news, skills

Categories: The Economy

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI)™ increased 0.3 percent from the revised August number, the first increase since January 2008. The index now stands at 88.5 and is down 15.6 percent from a year ago.

"While the employment numbers reported by the government last Friday were certainly disappointing, The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ suggests that the trend of declining job losses will continue," said Gad Levanon, Senior Economist at The Conference Board. "But the road to recovery is definitely going to be bumpy and may last unusually long, given the depth of the recession we have experienced."

This month’s increase in the Employment Trends Index™ was driven by a positive contribution from four out of the eight components. The improving indicators were Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, Industrial Production and Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales.

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Tags: economy, jobs, careers, unemployment, business news

Categories: The Economy