CORNWALL – A workforce consultant is anticipating that hiring opportunities will be stagnant through the summer in Cornwall.
Manpower is out today with its Employment Outlook Survey, looking at the hiring climate for July through September.
Of the local businesses polled, 13 per cent plan to hire, 7 per cent are anticipating cutbacks and 80 per cent are going to keep things as they are now.
With seasonal variations taken into account, it’s a 14 per cent overall drop from last quarter but still better than the same period last year.
“As far as one particular indicator (for the drop), we don’t have that information at our fingertips as far as industry,” spokesman Lisa Macinnis told Newswatch. “The areas that we are seeing the highest employment opportunities are within public administration, finance, insurance and real estate.”
The survey was conducted between April 19 and May 2, prior to the province announcing impending changes to labour laws, including a $15 per hour minimum wage by 2018 and equal pay for equal work.
“There is another minimum wage bump happening in October this year. So whether or not that will have an impact (on employment intentions), I think that from the information we have at our fingertips, it’s difficult to say,” MacInnis said.
As for the impending changes to wage laws, MacInnis said it’s hard to say whether it will show up in the next quarter given the changes are spread over two years. But “it’s certainly prevalent in people’s minds right now,” she said.
The employment outlook for Cornwall is worse than the national average, where Manpower is calling for a modest hiring climate (17 per cent plan to hire, 4 per cent plan cutbacks, 78 are status quo and 1 per cent are unsure).