Peruvian Hiring Intentions Reach 40 Percent for the Fourth Quarter
PERU · LABOUR
Key Facts
- —The figure ManpowerGroup puts Peru’s net employment outlook at 40 percent for the fourth quarter of 2026.
- —The move Up 13 points from the third quarter and 16 points from the fourth quarter of 2025.
- —The rank Second in Latin America, behind Brazil at 53 percent.
- —The share 49 percent of employers expect to add headcount between October and December.
- —Where it is strongest Cusco at 71 percent, Arequipa and La Libertad at 47, Lima at 42.
- —On the wording The survey describes it as among the highest in recent years rather than as an absolute record.
Peruvian employers say they intend to hire at a rate they have rarely reported. What happens to the intention when El Niño arrives is a different question.
ManpowerGroup’s employment outlook survey puts Peru’s net hiring expectation at 40 percent for the final quarter of 2026, a jump of 13 points in three months.
What the Number Is
The net employment outlook is the share of employers expecting to increase headcount minus the share expecting to reduce it, seasonally adjusted. At 40 percent it is up 13 points from the third quarter and 16 points from the same quarter of 2025.
Forty-nine percent of employers surveyed expect to expand headcount between October and December.
Peru ranks second in Latin America on the measure, behind Brazil at 53 percent.
The survey describes the reading as among the highest recorded in recent years. It does not declare an all-time record, and The Rio Times does not report one.
Where the Hiring Is
Cusco leads at 71 percent, a figure driven almost entirely by tourism and the services attached to it.
Arequipa and La Libertad are tied at 47 percent, Lima is at 42, Piura at 33 and Ucayali at 30.
The regional spread tells its own story. Cusco and Arequipa are tourism and mining. Lima is services. Piura and Ucayali, both agricultural and both more exposed to weather, sit at the bottom.
The Variable Nobody Can Price
Peru’s national multi-agency committee ENFEN has put the probability of an extraordinary coastal El Niño at 62 percent, and the government has declared a state of emergency across 893 districts in more than 20 regions.
A coastal El Niño damages the anchoveta fishery within a single season, disrupts northern coastal agriculture and washes out infrastructure. Those are precisely the sectors in the regions reporting the weakest hiring intentions.
Hiring intentions are collected before the event and revised after it. A 40 percent reading taken in a quarter when the emergency has been declared but the damage has not arrived should be read as what employers expect, not as what they will do.
Against that, the export side is strong. Peru shipped US$63.5 billion in the first seven months of 2026, up 33 percent, on copper and gold.
What the Survey Measures and What It Does Not
The ManpowerGroup outlook is a survey of employer intention, not a record of hiring. It asks firms what they expect to do in the coming quarter and nets the expansions against the reductions.
That makes it a leading indicator with a well-known weakness. Intentions track sentiment closely and outcomes loosely, and they revise hardest when something unexpected arrives between the survey and the quarter.
Its value is in the direction and the spread. A 13-point jump in one quarter is a genuine change in how Peruvian employers are reading the year ahead, whatever the eventual payroll numbers show.
The Informality Problem Underneath
Roughly seven in ten Peruvian workers are in informal employment, which is among the highest rates in Latin America and has barely moved through a decade of growth.
A survey of formal employers therefore describes a minority of the labour market, and the minority that is least exposed to the shocks that hit everyone else.
That is worth holding alongside a strong reading. Formal hiring intentions at 40 percent and an informality rate near 70 percent describe the same economy, and the second number is the one that determines how a bad El Niño season is actually experienced.
More: Peru news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Peru’s hiring outlook?
A net employment outlook of 40 percent for the fourth quarter of 2026, per ManpowerGroup.
How much has it moved?
Up 13 points from the third quarter and 16 points from the fourth quarter of 2025.
How does it compare regionally?
Second in Latin America behind Brazil at 53 percent.
Which regions lead?
Cusco at 71 percent, Arequipa and La Libertad at 47, Lima at 42, Piura at 33 and Ucayali at 30.
Is it a record?
The survey calls it among the highest in recent years rather than an outright record.
Sources: ManpowerGroup, Peru Retail, PQS.
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