Companies’ hiring plans are buoyant, particularly in the developed countries of Asia, according to the latest McKinsey Global Survey.1 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.
Compared with responses three months ago, however, executives in the Asia-Pacific region say that a smaller share of these new hires will be for new jobs and that more will be replacements for jobs in existing business units. Executives in China and India—whose companies are likelier to hire than those anywhere else in the world—indicate the opposite. At these executives’ companies, the share of employees hired for new jobs in existing business units will increase significantly, likely reflecting that these countries are enjoying continued strength in traditional outsourcing industries (Exhibit 3).
Respondents from India are also much likelier than they were three months ago—42 percent compared with 30 percent—to say that their new jobs will be in a different country from the corporate headquarters. This pattern may mirror the growing global footprint of many Indian companies.
Globally, 61 percent of all executives say the majority of their hiring will take place in the same country as corporate headquarters, little changed from three months ago. However, executives are notably likelier than three months ago to say that new hires working in a different country from headquarters will perform functions identical to those performed at home—perhaps indicating year-end assessments of efficiencies and costs (Exhibit 4). 
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