Singapore – While most employers are hunting frantically for new staff, the manufacturing sector is not looking to grow in its headcount.

Across the seven sectors in the survey by Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, 65% of employers surveyed expect to hire more staff, 28% do not expect to make any changes to their recruitment levels while only 3% predict a decrease in hiring in the second quarter of 2008. 

Employers in the manufacturing sector are predicting a net employment outlook of 46% for the next three months, two percentage points down from a year ago.

The public administration & education sector is the most optimistic at 81% of the net employment outlook. This is a 17 percentage-point increase compared to a year ago and the strongest outlook reported for the sector since it was included in the survey in the third quarter of 2003. However the transportation & utilities sector, also at 81%, is expecting the biggest year-over-year improvement of 35 percentage points.

Country manager of Manpower Singapore, C.K Rosa Goh, commented that recruitment in Singapore will see a more evident influx of foreign talent. “We are seeing more qualified job seekers from Vietnam, Indonesia and other nearby countries who are venturing into cross-border jobs,” she added.