Kelly Services has recently published its’ latest report on the Global Economic Situation. The report analyses key aspects of the global economy and labour markets in order to provide an overview of the global economic context.

According to Kelly Services, global economic growth is expected to remain rather flat from the 2014 level. A gradual acceleration is predicted in the following years, but for the time being a smaller growth in key countries, such as China and the USA, plus the slowdown in Russia and South America lead to the current conclusions.

As regards Latin America, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela are expected to keep on facing recessionary conditions. Particularly in Brazil, during 2015 there are record lows in business and consumers expectations and the Petrobras scandal has had a very negative impact. Furthermore, unemployment is expected to increase up to 5.5% during 2015.

In Mexico, the economic situation is rather positive and the unemployment rate has been lowered considerably in March 2015. Nevertheless, as more people enter the labour force in the near future, the unemployment rate shall not decline further.

Another issue analysed in the report are the dynamics of global talent. According to ILO, high skilled jobs remain capturing a larger share of the global labour mix, compromising 18% of the current global employment. Medium skilled jobs have remained stable but are drifting away from developed economies to Asian and African markets.

As regards new regulations, particularly in Latin America, the Mexican Supreme Court has established that employers are not allowed to discriminate candidates during recruiting processes based on gender, age or disability. Should the employer break this rule, punishment may include fines, compensatory damages and even criminal penalties.

Brazil’s lower house Congress has also approved a very important bill that allows companies to use contract workers for most of their business functions and not only for secondary activities. The bill is now to be approved by the Senate.

The report also tries to understand employees’ preferences about the working environment around the world. A major number of surveyed employees said they prefer workplaces where there is collaboration and cross-functional teams (57%), closely followed by flexible work schedules (54%). In addition, employees enjoy using the latest technology and working in an innovative and creative environment.

Finally, the Global Economic Situation report examines Freelance Management Systems (FMS) and RPO services.

FMS seek to satisfy the need of large company clients of controlling risk and improving the management of their independent workers. These systems function as workforce management platforms, providing tools to support compliance, screening, payment and performance measurement, among others, of independent workers. Originally thought for SME, these services are catching the eye of large companies. Furthermore, currently, FMS are being integrated to VMS services, to provide comprehensive services for their clients.

As regards RPO, the clients of these kind of services are shifting their requirements. They do not longer expect just to reduce costs, they are demanding value added processes that grant more impact and strategic alignment in their organization. Therefore, RPO providers shall increase their investments in analytics and develop strategies to satisfy their clients’ requirements.

Find the full report attached to this article.

CA Global Talent Quarterly Q2 2015