The 26th Annual Global CEO Survey is a flagship PwC survey which gathers the views of thousands of chief executives from across continents. It aims to identify key trends and patterns in the global economy that affect important management decision-making by leaders of the business establishment. The survey investigates what it takes to operate in the current reality through three topics - the race for the future, today’s tensions, and a balanced agenda.
CEOs today face a dual imperative: how can they stay ahead of long-term threats and reinvent their companies for the future while also handling new and unprecedented challenges of the moment - such as the four forces currently shaping their workforces?
In response to near-term economic challenges, CEOs stated that they are taking actions to increase revenue and cut costs however data shows that this does not extend to workforce reduction as just 19% are implementing hiring freezes and 16% are reducing the size of their workforce.
Interestingly, EU CEOs1 are less likely than their US counterparts to consider reducing the workforce (19% less) or implementing hiring freezes (21% less).
Reducing workforce (e.g., layoffs, redundancies)
Implementing hiring freezes
Many CEOs also anticipate the war for talent to remain fierce amidst the current economic climate. In such an environment, keeping an organisation’s top talent engaged and satisfied will be of the utmost importance for an organisation’s success. Ultimately, empowering and engaging an organisation’s workforce may be one of the best ways to withstand the current and anticipated economic pressures.
Source 1: PwC surveyed a global sample of 4,410 CEOs across 105 countries and territories in October and November of 2022. The EU figures are based on unweighted data from 1,254 responses across 20 EU countries: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
EU CEOs are more concerned about skills shortages than their peers elsewhere
When asked about matters that they believe will impact profitability over the next ten years, EU CEOs selected ‘Labour/Skills Shortages’ the most when compared to their peers in the US (9% less concerned) and APAC (7% less concerned). This is also higher than the CEO Global average of 52%.
Net: Large & Very Large Extent
More than a third of global CEOs (37%), do not anticipate any change in employee resignation and retirement rates with 36% expecting attrition to increase and 26% expecting it to decrease.
Most Global CEOs (72%) are investing in upskilling their workforce for the future in the next 12 months. Despite EU CEOs’ higher concern over labour/skills shortages, this group is investing slightly less in upskilling than their counterparts in the US (7% more) and APAC (3% more).
A key focus of this year’s survey highlights a notable concern on labour/skills shortages over the next ten years - this was cited as one of the top three concerns amongst Global CEOs. Given the fear of labour/skills shortages, it makes strategic sense for CEOs’ next move to be retaining their top talent. PwC research suggests that CEOs have a variety of opportunities to improve the retention of their top talent - such as changes to flexibility, pay transparency, and providing fulfilling and engaging work.
