Rise in staff demand slowing
Aug 03 2011
Workers are still sought-after, but demand has eased
Demand for staff continued to rise in July, but the rate of expansion eased further to the slowest for eight months, research finds.
The most sought-after workers are those in the engineering and construction and IT sectors, while the weakest demand trends were signalled for employees in the hospitality and healthcare categories, according to the Report on Jobs undertaken by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG.
Growth of both permanent salaries and temp hourly rates quickened in July, but remained below their respective averages since the start of the survey in October 1997.
Higher levels of staff availability were reported in July. Permanent candidate supply improved at the sharpest rate for 18 months, while the latest rise in temp availability was the strongest since February.
REC CEO Kevin Green says, 'The jobs market is continuing to perform well despite general weakness in the UK economy. We have now had two years of continuous growth and employers are still continuing to hire staff, albeit not in the numbers needed to radically reduce unemployment.
‘The UK’s flexible labour market is a key reason why employment is continuing to grow. Employers are using large numbers of temporary workers which, with the Agency Workers Regulations less than two months away from implementation, shows that businesses continue to see the value of using a flexible workforce.’
However, Bernard Brown, partner and head of business services at KPMG feels that employers across all sectors remain cautious about hiring new staff. 'The key reason for this is the uncertain economic outlook with domestic demand being weighed down by government cutbacks and falling real wages, while exports and investment are not strong enough to take up the slack,' he says.
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