Global Talent Update – July 2022 - Sales Consultants of Alexandria

“Our mistakes and failures can be transformative for our companies. It is called experience. Identifying, acknowledging and learning from them not only provides a competitive advantage but also offers employees psychological assurance, which could be the most powerful tool for promoting longevity, retention and engagement. Transparency, open dialogue and trust are conditions for this to happen successfully, and encouraging and rewarding honesty is imperative.”
– Bert Miller, President & CEO, MRINetwork

EMEA

Worldwide PC shipments are on pace to decline 9.5% in 2022, while the Europe, Middle East and Africa PC market is forecast to record a 14% decline this year driven by lack of consumer PC demand, says technological research and consulting firm Gartner. The Russian Invasion of Ukraine, price increases and unavailability of products due to of lockdowns in China are significantly impacting consumer demand in the EMEA region. The PC market is expected to experience the steepest decline of all device segments this year.

“A perfect storm of geopolitics upheaval, high inflation, currency fluctuations and supply chain disruptions have lowered business and consumer demand for devices across the world, and is set to impact the PC market the hardest in 2022,” said Ranjit Atwal, senior director analyst at Gartner.

In 2022, Gartner expects worldwide 5G phone shipments will total 710 million units. While this is an increase of 29% from 2021, it is down from previous expectations. “The growth rate is significantly down from an expected increase of 47% at the start of the year, with a resulting loss of 95 million 5G phone shipments,” said Atwal.

The demand for 5G phones is expected to pick up at a faster pace in 2023. “Much of the migration to 5G will occur by default as users will replace older 4G smartphones at the end of their life cycle with 5G-compatible smartphones,” said Atwal.

ASIA PACIFIC

Thailand is short more than half a million migrant workers, according to the country’s Chamber of Commerce, as Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy struggles with a slow post-pandemic recovery.

Demand for workers is high in labour-intensive sectors including agricultural goods and food processing for exports, construction, and tourism and services. Barriers to recruiting migrant workers include problems in their home countries such as civil unrest in Myanmar, and competition for workers from other countries like Japan and China. At present, there are about 2.5 million documented migrant workers from Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

In a bid to ease the shortage, the Labour Ministry’s employment department has approved labour management plans including allowing documented workers to stay until February 2025. Thailand will also allow illegal workers, this time including those from Vietnam, to be registered and work until February 2025.

With the improved labour plans and arrival of more workers, Thailand may see nearly 3 million migrant workers by the end of the year.

THE AMERICAS

Why have cryptocurrencies become so popular in Latin America? Of all the countries and regions in the world that have embraced cryptocurrencies, there are few that have done so quite as enthusiastically as Latin America has. According to one recent survey of 35,000 people around the world conducted by Mastercard, a staggering 51% of the respondents from the Latin America region indicated that they had completed at least one cryptocurrency-related transaction or activity in the last 12 months. The survey also reported that more than a third of the respondents located in the Latin American and Caribbean regions had used a stablecoin to make an everyday purchase or transaction.

Perhaps one of the most immediately obvious factors that has driven the adoption of cryptocurrencies relates to the broader economic conditions present within the region. Although this obviously varies quite significantly across the Latin American continent, in the countries where support for cryptos has proved particularly strong, there is also a strong correlation with financial instability and rising inflation. In Argentina, for example, with the Argentine peso plunging in value due to spiraling inflation cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin were viewed as the best store of value with the national currency rapidly losing value.

Another common issue across the continent is that it suffers from limited access to financial services in comparison to other parts of the world. According to one report by the World Bank, approximately half of the people in this region are unbanked and have inconsistent access to financial services. Over 70% of the population, however, does have access to a mobile network and device. In these circumstances, cryptocurrency and digital technologies could help to bridge this gap.

Article provided by MRI Network.