Canadian HR Reporter

NEWS BRIEFS More than one-third of Canadian employers expect that they will never return to pre-COVID-19 hiring levels. Another 11 per cent believe that it will take at least until the fourth quarter of 2021 or beyond to get back to such levels, found a ManpowerGroup survey for the first quarter of 2021 that polled 1,287 employers. The proportion of employers that don't expect to ever return to earlier hiring levels significantly jumped from the fourth quarter of 2020, when 24 per cent felt that way. The next biggest difference was in employers that felt that they would return to old hiring levels by the first quarter of 2021, which decreased to 14 per cent from 23 per cent. The most optimistic industries for early 2021 are public administration and transportation/public utilities, while wholesale and retail trade along with mining are the most pessimistic. Mining is the only industry with an overall outlook of staff reduction. One in five Canadians says that paying down debt is their top financial priority in 2021, a poll has found. Nearly as many (18 per cent) are primarily concerned with keeping up with their bills as financial uncertainty during the pandemic, according to the survey of 3,028 Canadian adults by CIBC. Nearly half of respondents (43 per cent) say that their personal finances have been negatively impacted by the pandemic and a similar proportion (46 per cent) think it will take more than a year to get back on track. Almost two in five people who increased their DEBT A TOP CONCERN FOR CANADIANS EMPLOYERS DROP HIRING EXPECTATIONS 65% Sixty-three per cent of Canadians believe that it's more important to have life insurance now compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, and two-thirds say that they have the protection through their employer or a group plan, found a survey of more than 500 Canadians by online insurance provider PolicyAdvisor. com. Only seven per cent of people perform meaningful work during their internships while the rest do menial tasks with few or no important assignments, a poll has found. However, a majority of participants believe internships are valuable, according to a LiveCareer online poll of 1,010 U.S. workers who had an internship in the past five years. debt load in 2020 had to do so because their regular expenses exceeded their monthly income while one in four cited a loss of income. Financial concerns are fuelled by increased pessimism for the year ahead, as 24 per cent of respondents believe their financial situation will improve in 2021 — a drop from 32 per cent in a similar poll one year earlier. More than three out of four say that they are concerned about another economic downturn in the coming year, with inflation (60 per cent) and slow economic growth (34 per cent) the main concerns. 79% Leads to a first job in a chosen career 78% Provides useful professional experience 74% Teaches valuable hard skills 69% Clarifies career goals Intern work 'menial' but valuable Life insurance highly valued INSURANCE PROVES POPULAR BENEFITS OF INTERNSHIPS HIRING OUTLOOK FOR Q1 2021 74% Keep workforce levels steady 12% Hire new workers 9% Lay off employees 5% Undecided about staffing • 82% feel anxious about their financial future • 81% value health insurance above other insurance • 64% value life insurance highly • 23% have purchased additional life insurance during the pandemic • 21% plan to purchase additional life insurance in the next 12 months 12% 74% 5% 9% 14 www.hrreporter.com M A R K E T N E W S

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