The McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives : Confidence Index, January 2007

With confidence unshaken, executives are keen to hire, particularly in Asia.

Web exclusive, January 2007

Companies' hiring plans are buoyant, particularly in the developed countries of Asia, according to the latest McKinsey Global Survey. Executives in those countries are much more likely to say their company is planning to hire than they were only three months ago. And in India, executives seem to be looking to offshore some of their own operations, after years of benefiting from Western companies doing the same.

Overall, the survey shows that executives' relatively high confidence in economic conditions remained unshaken during the final quarter of 2006, despite the upheaval the quarter delivered. Events such as the change in party control of the US Congress, the military coup in Thailand, North Korea's nuclear test, and the Russian government's continued intervention in oil and gas projects will not, executives' responses indicate, have any effect on national economic conditions or the prospects for respondents' industries (Exhibit 1).

Though confidence is little changed, there is a slim increase in the global share of companies planning to hire in the next six months, suggesting that executives may be making concrete plans for 2007. The increase is much larger among respondents from the developed countries in the Asia-Pacific region2 (Exhibit 2). Indeed, more than half of these executives say their company now plans to hire, a greater percentage than in any other developed region of the world.

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