U.S. workers continue to be hammered by the pandemic, with nearly 3 million first time unemployment claims filed last week, down slightly from the week before. And many workers who have kept their jobs are facing pay cuts.
But businesses are sounding a note of optimism during the economic turmoil.
“More than half of the companies believe that salaries will remain steady going forward,” says Umesh Ramakrishnan, co-CEO of Kingsley Gate Partners, which conducted a survey of over 1,200 executives across the globe. While the survey was conducted back in April meaning some of these projections may have changed, Ramakrishnan remains optimistic.
Over half of the CEO’s surveyed are anticipating a decline in sales of 25% or less, and only 23% of companies say they plan to seek government aid.
Ramakrishnan expects hiring to continue as companies start to embrace new ways of doing business. “Over 75% of them are now telling us they will actually hire an executive without once ever meeting him or her in person, which is a remarkable change… we had a client last week that actually took her iPhone to the office and walked around to give a walkthrough to the candidate while he was on the other end of the video interview. So people are getting very innovative.” He expects video interviewing is here to stay, even after the pandemic.
And surveyed respondents said the forced move to conduct business remotely has gone surprisingly well, with 33% in services companies believe employees have actually become more productive while working from home.
