This trend may be accelerated by the recessionary environment, even as overall MBA hiring numbers fall. A record 604 employers from 42 countries around the world voted during 2008 for the business schools from which they prefer to recruit MBAs. Forty percent of employer respondents were based in North America, thirty percent in Western Europe, seventeen percent in Asia-Pacific, five percent in Latin America, eight percent in Eastern Europe, and one percent in Africa and the Middle East.

QS regards employers and HR decision makers worldwide as having among the most objective and informed opinions on the -œbest- business schools. HR decision makers look beyond rankings and examine the facilities, the course content, and the quality of students. The better the performance of MBA hires from particular schools, the more likely those schools will be voted for by employers and feature well in this research. Allegiance to particular schools is not gained or lost by one good or bad MBA hire, but by a sustained experience over several years.

The schools securing the most employer votes by region are Harvard and Wharton in North America; INSEAD and the London Business School in Europe; INSEAD Singapore and the Melbourne Business School in the Asia-Pacific region; EGADE and IPADE in Latin America, and the American University in Cairo and Bar-Ilan University in Africa and Middle East.

This global research effort identifies the most popular schools in each region of the world because there is a growing number of employers seeking talented MBAs at a regional level. Traditional MBA employers remain committed to hiring from between thirty to seventy top-tier business schools, located in North America, Western Europe, and Asia.

However, -œThe pressures of globalisation mean that, beyond the traditional MBA employers, there is a growing number of regional MBA employers who may not have the budget to pay the salaries demanded by MBAs from elite schools. For MBAs who are proactive in their search and flexible in terms of salary expectations, this is expanding their range of opportunities, even in a time of recession-, says Ben Sowter, Research Director at QS.

The full report will be online on Thursday 29 January 2009 at http://www.topmba.com and will be made available to candidates registering to attend the QS World MBA Tour in North America, Europe, India, and other venues in Asia in spring/summer 2009.