Original post by James Seechurn – Consultant, Radford EMEA
As we move into Q4 2012, Europe’s recovery continues to suffer amidst on-going financial difficulties in key markets. Combined with a slow-down in emerging markets and a drop in US GDP, we have witnessed downward revisions to global economic growth for 2012 and beyond.
In Western markets, much depends on how these short-term economic challenges are met by policymakers. The upcoming US elections and continuing division of opinions in Europe, have contributed to downside risks.
In emerging markets, the susceptibility to slowing external demand highlights the need and difficulty of maintaining strong expansion, whilst shifting to domestic sources of demand.
With this subdued economic outlook and unemployment continuing to rise across Europe, there is little to suggest a significant recovery is imminent.
With this in mind, we present a snapshot of our Q3 2012 Trends data from the Radford Global Technology Survey.
Since our last Market Insight, voluntary turnover, often seen as a barometer of confidence in the labour market, has decreased in a number of key markets, perhaps reflecting the aforementioned economic uncertainty in Europe.
Salary increases have remained largely unchanged and are holding at a conservative 3% across the majority of Western Europe.
Patent Awards
In the fast-changing tech sector, the importance of patents has been frequently and publically demonstrated.
The implications for remuneration are focused on whether or not to incentivize patent applications, and the consequential policies, timing, and mechanics of such a scheme.
In the Radford Q3 2012 Trends report we have collected detailed data from our participants relating to if and how Patent Awards are granted.
