The recent Manpower employment outlook survey found employment prospects for job seekers would continue to fall for the second half of 2008.

The survey measures employers’ intentions to increase or decrease their number of employees during the following quarter.

Of the 2405 Australian employers surveyed a majority said they were going to hold their staffing levels for the next quarter.

The survey also showed a softening in the mining and construction sectors’ hiring intentions in the October to December quarter, with a net employment outlook of +24%.

This figure means 24% of companies will have jobs on offer, which is five percentage points lower than the previous quarter, when 29% of companies were offering jobs.

Despite the decreased jobs on offer, Manpower said both industries were propped up by high levels of vacancies.

The mining sector currently has 6000 vacancies and construction has 9500.

But the demand for employees in mining and construction is expected to be back to around 34% by June to July 2009.

The Manpower survey is conducted quarterly and has been running for 45 years.

The next survey is due out December 9.