Significant drops in hiring activity among companies in India are expected in Q4, while hiring intentions are overall positive in 31 out of the 42 countries surveyed in Manpower’s latest Employment Outlook Survey.

Overall, 22 labour markets are reporting improved or relatively stable hiring prospects from Q3 to Q4, but 26 countries should be seeing a downturn compared to Q4 2011.

The overall balance of Indian employers expecting to hire in Q4 was +18%, down from +53% in Q3 – a drop of 35 percentage points, although this reduces to just 18 when seasonally adjusted data is used.

The only other countries registering a double-digit percentage drop in hiring intentions are Italy and Poland, although in both cases these become single digit when seasonally adjusted.

No country registered a double-digit quarterly or year-on-year rise in employment intentions, although +8% quarter-on-quarter was seen in Costa Rica and Switzerland.

ManpowerGroup chair and chief executive Jeffrey A Joerres says: "There is so much uncertainty in the global labour market now and that is undermining employer hiring confidence.

“If these uncertainties – the debt crisis in Europe, rumblings of a slowdown in China, the US presidential election and healthcare costs coming in that can't be calculated – keep stacking up, we will see the global labour market's slow, steady hiring mode shift to a pause."

The full report is available from Manpower's website.