People should stop talking about recession and cuts and start talking positively about the future, Oracle's vice president HR (EMEA) Vance Kearney said today.

Opening the HR Directors Business Summit 2011 in Birmingham, Kearney said there was too much focus on the negative and not enough on the economic recovery.

"All we here about is austerity and cuts. We are all going to get very bored of this news," he said.

"It is wrong to focus on this. There is so much anxiety going on, particularly in the world of HR. We need to ban the words recession and cuts."

Kearney, who frequently appears in HR’s Most Influential ranking, was chairing the first day of the two-day summit.