Global hiring plans for Q1 of 2025

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PARTY PLAN 🎉

🌎 Global hiring plans

🐻 CA removes degree requirements

🤢 WORST employee incentives

And, of course, MEMES!

MEME OF THE DAY

Hiring

Global hiring plans for Q1 of 2025

With RTO mandates, hiring freezes, and mass layoffs, the labor market has been anything but stable for the last few years. But the instability may be behind us as we head into 2025. According to a December 10th report from ManpowerGroup, global hiring intentions have stabilized and will remain steady moving into the first quarter of 2025.

Companies in North and South America reported the strongest regional outlook for the first quarter, at 29%, with hiring intentions improving 1 percentage point from the previous quarter but declining 3 percentage points from the beginning of 2024. Globally, sectors with the strongest hiring intentions included IT (37%), financials & real estate (33%), and healthcare and life sciences (27%).

Medium-sized companies (250-999 employees) reported the strongest hiring intentions coming in at 31%. As expected, AI will factor heavily into talent trends. More than half of all employers plan to upskill current workers or hire outside talent to close the AI skill gap with competitors.

Degree Requirements

California removes degree requirements for state jobs

This week, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced the state will remove degrees and other educational requirements for roughly 30,000 state jobs. He also proposed a bill that would roll back requirements on another 32,000 jobs as early as next year.

Removing the degree requirements is part of a statewide initiative to establish high-paying career paths for workers, including those without college degrees. Newsom announced that the final version of his “Master Plan for Career Education” will be released early next year.

As of mid-November, at least 20 states were reevaluating degree requirements for public positions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Minnesota, Virginia and Pennsylvania are among the states that have already dropped degree requirements for most public jobs. 

Now, California is joining them. Only 45.6% of California residents hold a degree (slightly below the national average of 46.5%), so this could open the door for millions of people. Rare California W!!

Employee Incentives

WORST employee incentives, according to Reddit

Employee recognition plays a crucial role in company success. According to research in the Harvard Business Review, employees with managers who excel at giving positive rewards and recognition are 40% more engaged than those without such managers.

Unfortunately, many company leaders and managers don’t do a good job of rewarding employees, regardless of their intentions. Here’s a list of the WORST “rewards” employees have received for meeting their goals, from a Reddit thread on the topic:

• “A $5 Starbucks card for doing weeks of unpaid overtime”

• “A check for $7.28 for busting my a$$ to hit a sales goal”

• “Another pizza party”

• “A hand towel — one, single $!tty quality towel packed in plastic, not even with the company’s name”*

• “A $!tty book about losing weight” …* This one has to be the worst.

• “A single movie voucher, so no guest. A condition on the voucher was that the movie had to have been in theaters for at least 10 days”

• “More work!” Ok nevermind, this one is definitely the worst.

Check out HRMorning’s 3-Point Podcast for a full episode on how to NOT reward employees!

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