On Second Life, the virtual-reality platform, Jeff Joerres is a barrel-chested bodybuilder with a mop of bright blonde hair. In the flesh, the chief executive of Manpower is somewhat less musclebound and his hair is starting to thin. “What am I going to do, be a 90-year-old man?” he laughs. “It’s called Second Life for a reason.”
Aesthetic improvement is only one reason Mr Joerres is enthusiastic about Second Life. From his perspective at the top of one of the world’s biggest recruitment companies, Mr Joerres says that such virtual worlds and social networking websites are transforming the world of work. Increasingly, he says, “work will get done that way and people will find work that way”.
The economic downturn has accelerated this trend, Mr Joerres believes. He cites a new tie-up between Manpower and LinkedIn, the professional networking website, in which Manpower is offering career services to individual LinkedIn members – a collaboration prompted by a flood of requests to the networking website for career services in recent months.
Mr Joerres says he is becoming more optimistic about the employment scene in the US. Although he says the unemployment rate – a 6-9 month lagging indicator – will not recover until well into 2010, he sees signs the economy is becoming more stable.
At the start of the year, the Manpower chief said he would not be surprised if 2009 saw an average unemployment rate of 9 per cent, but now says that may have been too gloomy.
Mr Joerres is critical of how some companies slashed jobs during the downward cycle, a phenomenon he says they may pay for when growth returns. “There’s been a lot of blunt instruments out there, companies cutting 10 per cent across the board. But what about cutting the right 10 per cent?” he says.
“Companies that had the right workforce strategy had a better sense of what levers to pull when the downturn hit,” he observes. “But we’ve seen some really good companies panic and hit the trap door. That wasn’t necessarily wrong, but they now have a period to recover and if they don’t use this time carefully they could find themselves losing market share, or spending more on training new staff.”
Manpower released a surprising survey last week showing that 30 per cent of employers globally are struggling to find the right people to fill jobs even though unemployment is at, or near, record levels in many countries.
Mr Joerres says the report reflects that although there are more people looking for work, companies are getting better at more precisely determining what skills they need in their staff. Moreover, he adds, the economic downturn has made it harder to poach talent from competitors – since in the midst of uncertainty, people are less willing to jump ship.
While this reluctance may ease with economic recovery, Mr Joerres says opportunities in the developing world could prompt a “brain-drain” from America and Europe that could exacerbate the talent shortage.
“It’s not just Irish going back to Ireland or Indians going back to India,” he says. “It’s Americans saying: ‘Mumbai is not so bad and when I go there I get a standard of living that’s acceptable to me’. You’ll see more of that.”
In a reluctant foray into politics, Mr Joerres says the US is shooting itself in the foot by having too low a limit on the number of non-immigrant visas it issues, meaning that the work permits tend to run out by May every year.
“That’s just wrong,” he says. “The growth of this country came from people who were not American but were classically American – who came here from another country with an idea, developed it and created employment. Two-thirds of Silicon Valley companies were started by people not born in the US.
“We were so arrogant about being able to capture the smartest people in the world because we were the best alternative. But there are a lot of other neat alternatives right now. Go to Shanghai, Dubai, Qatar, Abu Dhabi – that’s who the US is competing against. We’re competing against the nightlife and the energy in Mumbai and Bangalore.
“This is a global labour market,” Mr Joerres adds. “If you see migration back to Mexico, India, China, some of the western countries could be really adversely impacted by a brain-drain that they didn’t quite anticipate.”
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