ManpowerGroup Hong Kong announced today that Hong Kong tops a list of those countries utilising contingent workforces according the Contingent Workforce Index 2013 Global Analysis (CWI) survey, recently published by TAPFIN, ManpowerGroup Solutions’ Managed Services Provider.

The CWI measures contingent labour favourability, comparing and ranking 75 countries on the conditions for contingent workforce engagement.  Each country in the index is assessed on 36 market conditions and statistics that influence the state of the contingent workforce. Countries are ranked on their overall environment for contingent workforce engagement in four key categories:  availability of contingent workers, cost of engaging contingent workers, regulation of workforce engagement and contingent workforce productivity.

“Businesses operate today in an environment where the only certainty is uncertainty, and this creates complexity when developing workforce strategies, especially in times when job creation takes longer to approve or the sheer volume of the workforce is expected to cope with business needs.  Flexible hiring becomes necessary, said Lancy Chui, Regional Managing Director of ManpowerGroup Greater China operations.

 “Such exclusive analysis provides insights for many aspects of business planning, from expansion of global workforce strategies and MSP programs, to capacity planning and sourcing strategies.  It is encouraging to see index Hong Kong listed as the top country for contingent workforce engagement, particularly our high cost efficiency, productivity, and volume of workers available in the workforce,” Ms. Chui commented,

In comparison, the top five ranking markets by CWI in Asia Pacific, there is substantial variance due to the regulatory impacts of each market.  China clearly has the largest contingent workforce; however restrictive regulations tremendously impact cost efficiency and potential productivity.  In comparison, while the Philippines and Hong Kong have smaller workforce availability, they rank higher in cost efficiency and productivity.  CWI rankings clearly demonstrate the most cost efficient and productive markets in Asia Pacific are smaller in size; however, the region’s overall performance for workforce availability remains quite high due to China and India representing slighter more than 50% of the world’s workers.