The Antal Global Snapshot, a regular global survey of hiring and firing trends covering more than 8,000 organisations in 40 key countries, has found job prospects for professionals and managers continuing to improve.

The ‘Global Snapshot’ project asked 8,280 companies in major markets such as Western and Eastern Europe, China and Mexico whether they were currently hiring at professional and managerial level. It then asked whether they planned to do so in the coming quarter and whether they were currently letting staff go or were planning to do so in the next three months.

Current hiring across the globe has gone down from 70% of respondents in November 2015 to 50% now. And the percentage of organisations intending to hire in the coming quarter was also down from 68% to 45%.

At the same time the percentage of organisations intending to shed staff had fallen from 19% to 17% now.

Western Europe
The highest current hiring levels amongst the larger economies were in Austria (61%) and Switzerland (55%). The lowest levels of hiring were in Greece at 28% of business surveyed, followed by the UK (35%).

The job market is currently fairing well in Italy (52%) and it appears to stay like this for the next three months, being IT the most active sector with 92% of the companies taking staff in now, and 91% of them intending to do so in the next quarter.

Eastern Europe and Eurasia
The highest recruiting levels in this region were in Poland (76%). Across the country, the manufacturing and IT sectors currently hold the highest figures of hiring new staff at 91% and 90% respectively. The economic problems in Hungary continue, having the lowest level of hiring in the region with only 27% of business questions actively seeking new managers or professionals, followed closely by Russia (29%).

Africa and Middle East
Africa shows that employment, at a professional and managerial level, appears to have decreased, but indicating an improvement with 67% of companies hiring in the following months.
In the Middle East, the survey indicated that 52% of the companies that participated are hiring and more will be doing the same during the next quarter. The UAE is a good example of the job market in the area, even with higher number, with 59% of companies currently taking staff in.

Asia
43% of organisations surveyed are currently hiring in China, a decrease of 33% compared with figures from November 2015. In addition to this, the percentage of organisations shedding staff maintains its figure (35%). The situation in all Asia moves around the same percentages than China, suggesting that employers tend to keep more staff but at the same time trying to reduce the personnel.

The Americas
The job market in this continent shows a positive outlook with 54% of companies hiring and 43% of companies reporting job cuts. USA protrudes over all with 67% of business taking staff in. In the other hand, Mexico shows the lowest level (43%).