Employers place increasing importance on availability of contingent workers and skilled labour. A new report by Manpower Group Solutions tracks the relative ease of sourcing, hiring and retaining contingent workforce in 75 countries.
The fourth Contingent Workforce Index (CWI) released recently ranks New Zealand in the topmost spot for the second consecutive year, thus demonstrating an optimal environment for use of contingent labour in terms of availability, cost-efficiency, regulation and productivity.
Singapore (2nd), the Philippines (3rd), Israel (4th) and India (5th) moved to the top of the leader board in 2016. The United States and Canada fell from the top five global markets, dropping to sixth and seventh from second and third, respectively.
“Over the past year, we saw a shift in priorities that resulted in a change in the 2016 weighting attributed to workforce size,” said Kate Donovan, Senior Vice President of ManpowerGroup Solutions. “Employers are feeling the talent shortage. Availability of contingent workers, as well as skilled labour, is gaining prominence. As a result, we saw countries like China and India re-emerge into the top ten markets for availability of talent. ManpowerGroup Solutions uses this tool to advise clients of the best countries in which to expand their operations based on specific criteria related to the workforce. The volatility across global labour markets makes this tool more valuable than ever.”
“Compared to last year, the 2016 CWI allows for a greater influence of skilled contingent workforce availability when it comes to determining locations for growing business,” said Raleen Gagnon, Director of Market Intelligence for ManpowerGroup Solutions.
“Weighting of specific metrics is adjusted annually to highlight the most influential factors when considering new markets for contingent labor opportunities. The increased focus on availability has resulted in concessions on lower wage markets, as employers are considering non-wage based labour costs such as benefits and taxes, due to their increasing impact on the total cost of labour.”
The greatest shift in the CWI of APAC region is the movement of Singapore, the Philippines and India back into the top five in 2016. New Zealand ranked highest of all countries for regulation of contingent workforce engagement practices. This includes geopolitical factors, thus holding its top spot both regionally and globally as well, for the second year in a row. Hong Kong also appears in the top five.
High Productivity along with availability creates a favourable contingent workforce environment in Singapore. However, the most favourable aspects here are geopolitical in nature.
The low relative ease of doing business, global peace index, global terrorist indicator and global corruption CPI score, along with high contract enforcement scores, substantially reduces the risk of operating a contingent workforce strategy in Singapore.
While Singapore performs exceptionally well in three of the four categories of the CWI, it is important to note, however, that the cost of doing business and average clerical, engineering and technology wages in this market are much higher than the global average.
Australia moved down in global ranking year-over-year to 16th. Though Australia continues to have one of the more favourable regulatory environments for contingent engagements, this market has reduced cost efficiency and lower availability. Australia scored favourably regarding maximum overtime, however it scored less favourably for maximum working days per week.
Overall, cost and productivity negatively affected Australia’s score. Ranking 10th out of fourteen APAC markets for productivity, and 14th regionally for cost efficiency, reduced Australia’s overall global ranking from 11th to 16th and to the 8th position regionally this year.
Moving back up into the top 15 markets in 2016, China now ranks 6th in the APAC region despite an increase in workforce regulation and decrease in the ease of doing business over the past year.
However, China still fared well in contract enforcement and other geopolitical factors. They continue to have a well-balanced mix of relatively high workforce availability, low-cost wages and average productivity. On the other hand, Hong Kong dropped from 4th globally in 2015 to 10th in 2016 due in part to higher weighting on the availability of skilled workers and workforce size.
