Negative results for the Recruitment Confidence Index of the Greek labor market

According to the Recruitment Confidence Index (RCI) which is conducted every 6 months by the Applied Research & Innovation Department of ALBA Graduate Business School at American College of Greece, there will be a decrease and stagnancy in the recruiting processes in the Greek labor market for the next 6 months. The Index is appeared to be less than 100 (currently 82.1) but it is stable comparing to the previous six months results. The RCI is less than 100 for the last 3 years.

The main objective of the survey is to explore the perceptions and trends of companies regarding their recruitment processes and methodologies over the next 6 months. The 1^st round (1^st half) of 2012 was conducted in December 2011-January 2012 with the support of Peoplecert Group and Kariera.gr while the event was sponsored by Continental tyres. More than 2,600 invitations were sent to HR departments, Recruitment and Selection Managers, CEOs, etc. of companies in Greece.

The main findings of the survey can be summarized as follows:

• 41.7% of the companies are expected to reduce the number of their employees the next 6 months, while 42.4% of the respondents have already decreased their workforce the last 6 months. Only 15.8% will proceed with recruiting new employees
• 57.9% of the participating companies didn’t give any salary increases the last 6 months, while 63.2% stated that they will freeze salaries for the next 12 months. In fact, 23% of the companies has decreased salaries, and 38.5% will do that next semester. Only the 7.1% of the companies will give salary increases of more than 3%.
• 59.4% of the companies have been affected either a lot or dramatically by the current financial crisis, while only 0.9% state that they have not been affected at all.
• Although the financial crisis has affected most of the companies, one out of two is still optimistic for the future of the company (51.2%)
• 41.7% will reduce employees' executive training.  
• The only industry sector that is expected to increase the recruiting activities (more than 20%) is the services sector. Education, Media, and Logistics sectors will show zero activities for recruiting the next 6 months.
• The tendency towards recruiting young employees and alumni is still high (32.7%).
• Companies that will employee new personnel will mostly search for Sales, customer service employees and Accounting/Finance executives.
• 60.4% of the companies prefer personal interviews as the main employee selection tool, while 38.8% of the companies employ other tools as well, such as psychometric tests and skill test (PC, language tests). Job Searching Websites is still the most popular method of finding new employees
• 51.8% of the companies consider a postgraduate degree as a crucial prerequisite for the selection of new personnel. 
• The majority of the companies believe that it is important to have a certificate of PC knowledge, English or other professional skills, while the 50% of the respondents stated that they publish job ads for secretaries, IT and accounting employees, where they specifically ask for PC knowledge certificate.
• Although there is a big percentage of companies which intend to reduce their workforce the next 6 months, there is still a lot of hesitation to provide outplacement services to their employees (Special theme of questions sponsored by KPMG)

From the 217 companies that participated in the survey, 54.4% were Greek, whereas 45.6% were multinational.

The collection of data for the 2nd half of 2012 will take place during May-June 2012. You may download the complete report with the results of the survey, as well as the analysis concerning the repercussions of the financial crisis here.

For more information on the survey please visit:  www.alba.edu.gr/rci, or contact Ms. Zoe Kourounakou, e-mail: [email protected], tel.: 210 8964531