Companies’ recruitment plans reflect improving economic prospects

ManpowerGroup conducted its quarterly survey among more than 40,000 employers in 42 countries around the world, in which a representative sample of 525 employers in Hungary were asked about their hiring intentions for the first quarter of 2025.

The seasonally adjusted Net Employment Outlook (NEO) derived from employer responses reached an average value of +14 percent, which is 3 percentage points lower than the previous quarter’s value, but at the same time shows an increase of 4 percentage points on an annual basis.

“Although the latest GDP data still shows a recession, more than a third of employers plan to increase their workforce by the beginning of the year, which indicates the optimistic expectations of domestic businesses for the coming year,” said Tamás Fehér, Managing Director of Manpower for Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia. “A significant number of companies are already counting on the revival of their markets, although this trend is far from uniform. It is a positive sign that the expectations of the largest segment, the raw materials and processing industries, have improved significantly over the past year, while companies operating in the automotive industry, for example, continue to expect a decline.”

The 14 percent headcount increase rate is an average value, with significant differences between regions of the country. Employers’ expectations are above the national average in Western Transdanubia (NFM: +21%), Northern Hungary (+18%), and Budapest (+15%). A smaller increase can be expected in the other regions, and Southern Transdanubia (-5%) is a negative exception – for the second quarter now -: here again more people are indicating layoffs than hiring.

When examining the individual sectors, there are also significant differences. The increase in headcount may be well above the average in the basic and manufacturing industries (NFM: +26%) and in the finance and real estate (+23%) sectors. The growth may be around the average in the areas of consumer goods and services (+13%) and information technology (+12%). We can expect moderate headcount growth among companies in communication services (+9%) and healthcare and life sciences (+6%). A decrease in headcount is expected in the logistics and automotive industries (NFM: -5%) – here the indicator has fallen by no less than 20 percentage points in one year, which well reflects the current problems affecting the European automotive industry. Net layoffs are also expected in the energy and utilities (-4%) segment.