Google still the world's most attractive employer – but faces growing competition from the big accountant companies.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin the world's most attractive employers

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• Highlights from "The World's Most Attractive Employers 2010":

Google is still the world’s most attractive employer. But it's facing growing competition from the big four auditing firms, Swedish branding firm Universum said Tuesday as it released its yearly global employer attractiveness ranking, based on 130,000 career seekers, with a business or engineering background.

“We’re witnessing the auditing firms and FMCG companies (Fast Moving Consumer Goods ) reconquering their talent group after a brief love-affair with the IT industry”, said Michal Kalinowski, chief executive officer of the Stockholm-based company.

In the business category, 2010 has been a good year for the auditing industry, as KPMG, Ernst&Young;, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte now take four out of the top five places in the ranking.

At the same time, banks, management consulting companies and oil firms are being perceived as less attractive employers.

In the engineering category the IT-sector companies continue to dominate: the top three employers – Google, Microsoft, and iBM – maintain their positions from last year. The notable changes are Japan’s Sony at no. four and Apple’s new entry.

Swedish home furnishings giant IKEA was ranked as the world's 23:d most attractive employer among business students and at number 35 among engineers.

German car manufacturer BMW is still the most powerful employer brand in the automotive industry.

More highlights from the report.

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The global rankings are based on the employer preferences of students from Brazil, Canada,China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, U.K., and U.S.

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