Hi

Political:- when the state of national politics dictate how HR or employment is going to take place or the political climate is either good/bad then this determines whether H is either going to recruit or not.

Economic: Adverse economic conditions in most cases lead to a freeze in recruitment or even downsizing since if a company is not doing well the it might need to cut down on HR so that it might be let with the size that meets the immediate needs in terms of available turnover.

Technological factors: This external factors effect can be clearly seen when computers hit the corporate world, lots of downsizing took place because computers could do most of the jobs. A job done by 2-4 people could be cut to one done by just a single person e.g. An accounting package could be used to cater for 3 jobs or so since manual entries and paper work was reduced.

Social: This can be about the culture of a people e.g. There are areas where women are not allowed to work by their culture, thus even if a firm wanted to recruit a woman for a particular job e.g. PRO, etc it might find it difficult and may have to reconsider that position.