Despite recessionary concerns and layoffs, the US hiring outlook for the second quarter remains strong, according to the ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook released today. The net employment outlook now stands at 30%, up 1% from last quarter and down 5% year over year.

The net employment outlook is calculated by subtracting the percentage of employers who anticipate reductions to staffing levels from those who plan to hire.

“This labor market continues to defy signs of economic gravity with another robust hiring outlook for the quarter ahead,” said Becky Frankiewicz, ManpowerGroup chief commercial officer and North America president. “Employers are still impacted by pandemic paranoia — they remember how long it took to bring workers back and are holding onto and hiring business critical talent. We’re still seeing a concentration of demand in our real-time data, and this survey reflects concentration too, with IT leading the way in hiring plans despite layoffs dominating the headlines.”

The report found that despite high-profile layoffs, the IT sector reports the strongest hiring outlook of all sectors at 34%.

The overall hiring expectations in North America are the highest of all world regions. However, both the US and Canada expect hiring to be weaker compared to last year.

Globally, the strongest hiring intentions are among organizations in Panama (41%), Costa Rica (38%) and Guatemala (38%). The least optimistic outlooks were reported by employers in Hungary (2%), Greece (7%) and Poland (8%).

ManpowerGroup’s survey included nearly 39,000 employers in 41 countries.