There were about 472 thousand planned hires by businesses for October and 1.2 million for the October-December quarter, a slight year-on-year decrease of 1.2 percent in the month and 1.4 percent in the quarter, confirming the slowdown that is affecting the global and European economy. The difficulty in finding personnel reported by companies, now with a structural character, affects 51.0 percent of planned hires. Outlining this scenario is the Excelsior Information System Bulletin, produced by Unioncamere and Anpal labor agencies. Industry schedules about 150,000 hires in October (+1.7 percent over last year) and 365,000 for the October-December quarter (-1.4 percent over the year). The increase is due to current demand in the construction sector, with 56 thousand new contracts scheduled for the month and 132 thousand for the quarter (+6.3% and +1.1% over the same period in 2022). In contrast, the manufacturing sectors show a slight decline in the month (-0.9% compared to last year), which appears set to worsen in the quarter (-2.8% compared to a year ago). More pronounced is the slowdown in services, which plan a total of 322,000 hires in the month (-2.5 percent compared to October 2022) and 839,000 in the quarter (-1.3 percent compared to the 2022 quarter). Especially down are the forecasts for education and healthcare among personal services (-12.5 percent compared to October 2022 and -11.9 percent in the October-December quarter). Trade firms, however, report rising demand with 66,000 hires in October (+1.8% compared to 12 months ago) and 177,000 hires in the October-December quarter (+1.5% compared to the same period in 2022).
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