ManpowerGroup’s Experis Tech Talent Outlook says global tech hiring stayed firm for Q4 2026. The release puts the global tech Net Employment Outlook at 37% across 4,258 Tech & IT Services employers in 42 countries, and says 51% of employers plan to increase staffing levels, 34% expect to maintain staffing, and 14% anticipate reductions.
The release says employers are prioritizing AI capabilities alongside human skills. It also says communication, professionalism, and adaptability rank above the top technical skill in employer demand. ManpowerGroup identifies that top technical skill as AI Modeling & App Development, followed by AI Literacy and Traditional IT & Data skills excluding AI.
HR Dive, reporting on the related ManpowerGroup employment outlook, said AI has not consistently improved the speed of hiring. HR Dive reported that only about one-third of respondents saw faster time-to-hire versus 2025, while 42% reported no change and 25% said hiring was slower.
What the report says
According to ManpowerGroup’s release, the survey covered 4,258 Tech & IT Services employers across 42 countries. The release says the global tech Net Employment Outlook for Q4 2026 is 37%, and it says 51% of employers plan to increase staffing, 34% expect staffing to remain unchanged, and 14% anticipate reductions.
ManpowerGroup says employers are prioritizing AI capabilities and human skills. The release specifically names communication, professionalism, and adaptability as ranking above the top technical skill in employer demand, and it identifies that technical skill as AI Modeling & App Development.
The supplied sources also indicate that the release breaks out geography and regional highlights, but the bundle does not list every country-level example in the article text.
HR Dive, reporting on the related ManpowerGroup employment outlook, said AI has not consistently improved the speed of hiring. HR Dive reported that only about one-third of respondents saw faster time-to-hire versus 2025, while 42% reported no change and 25% said hiring was slower. The supplied sources do not say whether those responses came from the same employer group as the global tech survey or from a broader set of respondents beyond the tech sample.
What changed
The main change described in the bundle is a reweighting of what employers say they want. ManpowerGroup’s release says employers are increasingly prioritizing AI capabilities, while also elevating human skills such as communication, professionalism, and adaptability. The report’s Q4 2026 outlook indicates continued positive hiring intent among the employers surveyed.
At the same time, the reporting attached to the survey says AI tools have not consistently shortened hiring timelines. HR Dive’s summary states that about one-third of respondents reported faster time-to-hire, but that a larger share saw no change or slower hiring. The supplied sources do not establish why time-to-hire did or did not improve, and they do not identify whether AI was used in screening, scheduling, sourcing, or other steps.
Scope and limits
The scale in the supplied material is clear where ManpowerGroup reported it: 4,258 employers, 42 countries, and a 37% global tech Net Employment Outlook for Q4 2026. The staffing plan split is also explicit in the release: 51% increase, 34% maintain, 14% reduce. Those are survey results, not a guarantee of realized hiring.
The supplied sources do not list every country or every regional highlight in the body of this article, even though the release breaks out geography. They also do not specify how much of the planned hiring will occur, which regions will see the strongest additions, or how quickly employer priorities will translate into actual openings.
Because the research bundle ties together a hiring outlook and a separate reporting item about hiring speed, the narrow reading is that employers in the survey still intended to hire, but AI had not yet eliminated friction in the process. The sources do not support a broader conclusion about the future of tech employment beyond that near-term snapshot.
What to watch next
The next question is whether the skills mix described in the report holds in later quarters. If future ManpowerGroup outlooks keep emphasizing AI capability plus communication, professionalism, and adaptability, that would suggest the hiring standard is stabilizing around a hybrid profile rather than a purely technical one. The supplied sources do not say that trend is permanent.
It will also matter whether time-to-hire improves in later reporting. HR Dive’s summary says only about a third of respondents saw faster hiring versus 2025, with 42% unchanged and 25% slower, which suggests AI use in recruiting has not yet produced a consistent speedup. The sources do not identify whether that pattern differed by country, company size, or role type.
Staffing Today listed the ManpowerGroup item on September 16, 2026, aligning the topic with the tech hiring report. Beyond that corroboration, the supplied sources do not add further operational detail. For now, the report’s central message is straightforward: tech employers are still hiring, but they appear to be valuing AI fluency together with human skills more than raw technical scale alone.
Sources
- Global Tech Hiring Steadies as Skills Take Priority — ManpowerGroup
- AI hasn’t significantly improved the speed of hiring, report finds — HR Dive
- Global Tech Hiring Steadies as Skills Take Priority — Staffing Today