After the strong growth in post-pandemic labor demand, private employment will reach a plateau, specialists predict. This will be a year of hiring in specific sectors. Where will the work be?
“2021 was a year of tremendous post-pandemic recovery, in line with the economic recovery. In 2022 there were segmented opportunitiesspecific, in tune with the pre-pandemic market, and this will continue in 2023,” says Matías Ghidini, CEO of GhidiniRodil.
For Ghidini, “we have returned to the historic plateau of a weakened labor market”. And he provides the numbers: “In ten years (from August 2012 to August 2022) registered private employment grew by only 2.4% while the audience did so at 28.3%. And in the same period the self-employed fell by 5% while the mono-tax payers increased by 40%. Ergo, quantity is not quality,” she says.
For his part, Luis Guastini, general manager of ManpowerGroup Argentina, emphasizes that this is a year “with many particularities: Election year, uncertainty about how the drought will impact foreign currency earnings and what happens around the world – from Covid in China to the global recession – could have some impact,” he lists.
However, “there are some businesses that will continue to grow, which will not be affected so much by the context situation, for example, everything related to technology“, He says.
In this context, “positions related to the transformation processes of companies in general are required above all: project managers, data analysts, information security and developers of software and applications,” he says.
First quarter
Manpower’s traditional expectations survey proves it conservative hiring plans for the first quarter of the year, with a net employment expectation (ENE) of +9%, three points higher than in the last quarter of 2022, but well below the previous two quarters (+13% and + 18%).
The ENE is calculated by taking the percentage of employers who expect their workforce to increase and subtract the percentage who expect it to decrease. The result is seasonally adjusted to avoid the impact of hiring fluctuations at different times of the year.
According to this survey, Finance and Real State reported the highest expectations (32%), followed by Information Technology (21%) and Energy and Utilities (19%). Communication services, transport, logistics and automotive and industry and materials also showed higher expectations than the ENE.
Large companies (with more than 250 employees) reflect the highest expectations for staffing: +24%. The small ones, between 10 and 49 employees, minors: +1%.
By sectors
With declining economic growth and rising inflation, 2023 is not expected to be a year of improvements for employment. “There is a lot of uncertainty and to this is added the sword of Damocles of the lack of dollars”, Gabriela Pereyra, founder of ModoBeta, analyzes for her part.
Companies, he assures, “are putting their foot on the brake, with which the job offer begins to loosen”.
For Ghidini “he will persevere sectoral job applicationlimited to a handful of sectors”. And name: Tech, FinTech, AgTech, HealtTech, Shared Service Centers, Construction, and maybe Tourism.
Adecco adds other sectors among those that will offer jobs in 2023: “there will be opportunities in industries related to energy, oil and gasretail, tourism and gastronomy, transport and IT services”, lists Carla Cantisani, director of Quality, Services and Transformation.
The software industry is one of the most employment generating sectors. According to the Argentine Chamber of Software Industry (CESSI), 18,541 new jobs were created between 2019 and 2021. But the main companies in the sector cannot find the right profiles to fill them, therefore the demand for workers will remain constant.
Despite the news of layoffs in big tech globally, “tech profiles will find work in more traditional sectors: heavy industry, countryside,” says Ghidini. The main opportunities will be in the digitization of some sectors in which “agtech” or “agrotech” companies, “healthtech” and “edtech” companies have emerged.
In the manufacturing industries registered employment grew in 2022. According to the “Industry Labor Indicators” report of the Center for Studies of the Argentine Industrial Union (CEU), there was a year-over-year growth of 4.4% between September 2021 and the same month in 2022.
The main hires were the producers of metal products for structural use (+2,409 jobs), auto parts (+2,207 jobs), other metal products (+2,092 jobs), footwear (+1,782 jobs), agricultural machinery (+1,581 jobs), and concrete, cement and plaster (+1,489 jobs), said that report.
“To these activities we must add the logistics sectorwhich has increased the demand for professionals over the past 12 months and has become one of the most dynamic segments of industrial activity,” says Daniel Urman, director of NUMAN.
“We respect him the first half of this year will have a very similar dynamic to that of 2022with a market characterized by very strong competition for talent,” says Urman.
Towards the second half of the year “probably the electoral scenario will condition the decisions of companies, therefore a slowdown in hiring plans is possible“.
By 2023, demand will come mainly from the side of innovation, technology and digitization of operations. “Latin America is quite behind other regions in this process. There is a lot of ground to gain and in this context new positions and areas are being created,” explains Urman.
On the other hand, business areas of industrial companies have a greater difficulty than other areas in appearing attractive to attract talent, as they cannot do without face to face.
“We see that there are many professionals who started out within an operating field who welcome positions that take them away from the operation by itselfto move on to areas of design, development or quality”, describes Urman. For this, “the professional those who love plant life, have an advantage because the companies will sue him”.
Export professional services
Professional services exports have been boosted by the pandemic and will continue to grow in 2023, due to “the dollar exchange rate disruption,” says Ghidini. Therefore, the number of young people who independently enjoy the double benefit of flexibility plus hard currency.
According to Ramiro Raposo, Country Manager of Bitwage, a platform for paying commissions in cryptocurrencies and digital dollars, the countries that hire the most Argentine professionals are the United States, Spain, Canada and the United Kingdom. “The average remuneration of an Argentine service exporter is approximately USD 3,000 reaching payouts of up to $5,000 a month,” he reports.
Most come from the IT sector: programmers, systems engineers, developers, project managers, programmers, designers, etc. But other areas are also growing, such as marketing consultants, translators, psychologists and English teachers.
For Ghidini, “this trend has an open ending”, since “the sustainability of this model is unlikelyboth for the concern and the official monitoring of the government to find a way around it, and for the working and fiscal marginality in which these freelancers“he observes.
What are companies looking for?
A recent study by Manpower on the most requested profiles and the most requested skills showed that, after information technology, “customer service positions appear”, says Guastini.
Operations and logistics positions are also in high demand, due to the growth of e-commerce and sales and marketing positions.
“Soft skills occupy an increasingly dominant role in the selection of a candidate, mainly due to the speed with which acquired knowledge must be revalidated,” says the managing director of Manpower. In this sense profiles that can learn quickly are highlighted. Self-discipline and the ability to solve problems and take initiative are also valued.
“Companies are looking for people who can innovate, who can change, who bring new ideas, but then they have the problem of not being prepared for what disruptive thinking means”, warns Pereyra.
As for senior positions, “we see companies from different sectors that will continue to require CFO (Chief Financial Officer), CTO (Chief Technology Officer) or CPO (Chief Product Officer) profiles and talents with experience in digital, new technologies, information security and data architecture,” says Ezequiel Palacios, associate director of Glue Executive Search
Source: Clarin
