Survey: 4 in 10 companies are considering laying off staff, but a quarter of employers are urgently looking for extra employees | Interior

Liantis occupational psychologist Bernd Carette provides more explanation. The survey of 1,568 entrepreneurs, mainly SMEs, shows that 39.3 percent of those companies “indicate that they will have to let people go to reduce costs”. However, there is a lot of uncertainty around energy and wage indexation, so “the question is whether they will actually make layoffs”.

According to Carette, Liantis notes that little use is made of temporary unemployment due to the energy crisis. Based on this federal government measure, 41,000 were at home part-time or full-time in October.

The HR company also warns in ‘De Zondag’ that firing people should be done thoughtfully. “Firing people creates a certain dynamic in your company and can lead to other employees also thinking that their job is insecure and considering leaving. That is of course not the intention, because that way you create even more tightness,” says Carette.

Statistics from the Federal Public Service Employment show that last September 644 employees of Belgian companies were involved in an announcement of an intention to make collective redundancies. That is the highest level so far this year. In September 2021, that figure was still 1,072, with an absolute peak in January 2021 with 1,853 employees involved.

In August it turned out that the number of layoffs during the first six months of 2022 was at its lowest level in ten years. This was evident from figures from HR company Securex. Voluntary turnover — in which employees leave themselves — remained stable in the first half of the year at 3.3 percent.

In the meantime, the confidence of Belgian entrepreneurs continues to decline. The economic barometer is deteriorating for the seventh month in a row, albeit at a slightly slower pace. This is evident from the results of the monthly survey of the National Bank on Thursday.

The drop in confidence is most apparent in business services, with only the construction sector escaping the decline.

The HR company also points out a contradiction. Because 26 percent of employers also indicate that they are urgently looking for extra employees.

According to Carette, this has to do with certain key positions that are difficult to fill due to the current shortage on the labor market. “They are so crucial that you can’t just scrap them. This means that certain employers on the one hand say goodbye to people, but on the other hand are also looking very hard for certain profiles. Just think of IT colleagues, commercial employees, technical managers and healthcare professionals.”