Private sector to end cutbacks
Apr 28 2010
“The private sector is looking to recruit more staff”
Employment is set to improve due to a surge in private sector recruitment, claims a new survey.
A net balance of 5 per cent of employers are looking to hire staff, the largest figure since winter 2008, according to the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development.
This is due to 29 per cent of private employers looking to re-hire, up from 5 per cent in the previous quarter. Meanwhile the public sector saw a negative balance of - 43 per cent, the lowest in six years.
John Cheney, CEO of web-based CRM company Workbooks, says: ‘After securing £2 million in angel investment we have recruited seven new members of staff and will hire another ten in the next six to nine months. Although we’re still not through the worst of it, there seems to be an uptick in companies thinking about hiring.’
James Turner, director at IT company Postcode Anywhere, says his business is undergoing strategic hiring: ‘We recruited four more people this year and will take on another ten in the next 12 months. This is part of our plan to position ourselves for the upturn so when business returns to normal we will be able to leap forward.’
However, while the survey suggests good news for employment prospects in the private sector it also shows that public sector employers have ‘woken up to the scale of the financial challenge they will have to face’, says Alan Downey, head of public sector at KPMG.
The latest figures show that unemployment has risen to 2.5 million, the highest rate since 1994.