Fortune 500 companies filled 278,236 positions in January 2005

Increase of 50,935 from January 2004 shows swing to more jobs filled by external versus internal resources
London, 10th February 2005 ñ Taleo, a pure-play Software Service Provider of on-demand talent management solutions, today announced January projections for its Taleo Talent Index, established in December 2004. This index of Fortune 500 talent movement provides an indication of major talent trends within Fortune 500 companies, such as job stability, talent mobility and worker confidence. As a SSP, Taleo hosts on its applications and within its data centers the talent management initiatives of what the company believes is an industry-leading market share of Fortune 500 companies, providing it with the data to measure and project talent movement among Fortune 500 companies.

For January 2005, the Taleo Talent Index projects that there were 278,236 positions filled among Fortune 500 companies; 187,121 positions were filled with external hires, as compared to 91,115 positions filled through internal hires.

As compared to data for January 2004, there was a sharp increase in the number of positions filled by external hires, from 56.2 percent of positions filled in January 2004 to 67.3 percent of positions filled in January 2005, an increase of more than 1100 basis points.
Percent of Fortune 500 Jobs Filled by External/Internal Resources

ìThe data is important in that it gives us insight into talent management changes among Fortune 500 companies,î said Taleo CEO Louis Tetu. ìClearly there are two dynamics at work here: Large organisations in January hired significantly more external than internal contributors as compared to a year ago, which may signal increased confidence in long-term growth among this segment of the economy. Conversely, this may also signal that a more confident workforce will increasingly leave companies for career advancement. While some turnover is certainly healthy, companies should be careful to retain their A-players. We recommend that companies both continually seek to enhance their talent base through best-quality external hires, and encourage internal mobility to ensure that the best talent stays with the organisation.î

The Taleo Talent Index projection is based upon Taleo customers who are members of the Fortune 500 having filled 20,994 positions in January; of these, 14,119 were filled by external hires and 6,875 were filled by current employees. Based on a sample size of 10 percent of the Fortune 500, the Taleo Talent Index projects there were 1.17 jobs filled for every 100 employees at Fortune 500 companies. Taleo has approximately 165 Global 2000 customers. Including all Taleo customers, there were 40,412 jobs filled through Taleo solutions in January 2005. Taleo solutions are delivered on-demand to 400,000 users in 87 countries, and serve 20 million candidates from 190 of the worldís 193 countries and independent states.