It’ll be a bit of a mixed bag on Barrie’s employment front during the first quarter of the new year.

ManpowerGroup employment agency has release its latest outlook survey, which found businesses and organizations expect a “modest hiring climate” during the first three months of 2021.

According to the survey, nine per cent of employers plan to hire, while 26 per cent expect cutbacks. Another 57 per cent intend to keep the status quo on staffing levels, said Jennifer Scale, of Manpower’s Barrie office.

“With seasonal variations removed from the data, Barrie’s first quarter net employment outlook of zero per cent is a six-percentage-point decrease from … the same time last year,” she said. “This indicates a slow hiring pace for the upcoming months.”

Eight per cent of employers are unsure about staffing levels during the quarter, Scale said.

Statistics Canada says the Barrie census metropolitan area’s unemployment rate was 10.6 per cent in November, up from 9.2 in October. However, unemployment rates fell across the country and province last month — Canada’s moved to 8.5 per cent, Ontario dropped to 9.1.

Employers in nine Canadian sectors, ranging from public administration to retail, expect to hire people this winter, Manpower said.