Hiring plans fall to weakest since Covid in S&P Global survey

[NEW YORK] Plans to create jobs dropped to the lowest since the height of the Covid pandemic in a survey conducted by S&P Global Market Intelligence, weighed down by concerns about trade wars and their impact on business activity.

Global hiring intentions in February were the weakest since mid-2020 in the tri-annual survey of 12,000 manufacturers and service providers, and included plans to shed jobs in the UK, Germany, France and mainland China.

“Companies around the world are increasingly taking a ‘wait-and-see’ approach to hiring and investment plans amid a range of uncertainties surrounding geopolitics and global trade,” Andrew Harker, economics director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in a report. Projections for employment, capital expenditure and R&D investment were all scaled back last month compared with the October survey, “revealing a belt-tightening approach to survival in uncertain times”, he wrote.

Measures of economic policy uncertainty have surged this year after the Trump administration announced tariffs on imports from key trade partners, delayed some and warned more are to come. A separate report on US small businesses showed an optimism gauge and hiring plans both fell to the lowest in four months in February.

While growing wary about hiring and investing, companies surveyed by S&P Global signalled a slight uptick in business confidence compared with October. Inflation expectations were little changed in the survey conducted from Feb 6 to Feb 26 – a time when levies on Mexico and Canada were on hold and new tariffs on aluminium and steel were announced.

US firms reported the highest profit expectations of any developed economy aside from Ireland in the survey. BLOOMBERG