If you believe the locals, Oman and Saudi Arabia are the best places on earth to find a job: 69 percent of the adults in each country believe their local job market is good. The available jobs there may not be so attractive, though, by American standards; last year, income per capita was $26,900 in Oman and $24,500 in Saudi Arabia. In the United States, that figure was $49,000.
Some interesting patterns emerge from these numbers.
Nearly all of the top 10 most optimistic countries are developing economies. Singapore is the only developed country making that list.
There’s also a lot of variability among euro zone countries about the economic outlook, even if their fates are all intertwined:
Germans are relatively chipper, with about half saying now is a good time to find a job in their city or area. That’s higher than the worldwide average.
Italian, Irish and Greek respondents, on the other hand, sound pretty dour. In Greece, 96 percent of adults think now is a bad time to find a job, and just 2 percent think it’s a good time.
I’m curious: What businesses are those 2 percent of Greeks involved in? Bankruptcy law?
Addendum on methodology: These results are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews with approximately 1,000 adults per country, at least 15 years old, conducted in 146 countries and areas in 2011. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.
