May « 2010 « Go To Recruitment Employment Blog

27/05/2010

The VAT joke

This is an area which I sympathise with Retail outfits and obviously a concern for retail recruitment agencies. The speculation is that on June 22^nd when the emergency budget is called George Osborne will announce a VAT increase to 20%, a 2.5% increase.

British Retail Consortium (BRC) represents 80-90% of the UK stores, stated that a rise to 20% would cut consumer spending by 3.6 billion and could lead to losses of 163,000 jobs. Although this may help dealing with the country’s deficit it will definitely have negative implication on a retail recovery and of course have damning effect on the retail job market.

The BRC view is that the ConDem should concentrate there efforts on cutting public spending rather than changing sales tax. A view however that I personally believe will be ignored. My issue with this is that tackling the deficit in this matter is a way of balancing the books better but does create more issues. I believe I’m right when I say that last year the UK lost £30 billion from VAT through fraud, this is a phenomenal figure and one that has to be addressed immediately.

This brings me on to fraud in general and maybe there should be a more aggressive approach in stopping this kind of criminal activity as it seems to me that if we prevent much of this fraud then it will go a long way in reducing our debt if not all of it. I appreciate this is easier said than done but I can’t get away from thinking that because of a few, many are affected.

Filed under: retail employment agencies — Goto @ 10:23

24/05/2010

More women need to have top jobs

Management & executive recruitment agencies would have been interested in The Pay Report that was produced by The Daily Telegraph.

The report outlined how there are too few women in director positions, FTSE 100 demonstrated this by having only 29 female executive directors in 2009, one less than in 2008. Last month the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee discussed how that the lack of women in financial positions made executive decisions less effective. The MP for Woman at the time was Harriet Harman, who called for an end to the “nightmare of men-only boards”.

The view of successful business woman Nichola Pease, boss of JO Hambro Asset Management actually sited the reason for the lack of woman directors as lifestyle choice rather than a company choice. The Treasury Select Committee were told by Ms Pease, that the reality is that many high paid jobs require a time commitment, a commitment that many women cannot give. With maternity leave being too long and other rules that hold back women, Ms Pease felt that all these factors meant that in most cases men have the time to do these roles.

The Pay Report also showed that the FTSE 250, showed only 7% of women in boardroom positions and as these represent younger and growing companies, it does not show a good feeder for the larger companies to obtain experience women.

I would have to say that I agree with the need for Women to have more, high end jobs but this has to be on the provisor that they are the best person for the job. In times when are our economy is suffering such as it is now, I would expect the people who have the power and the experience to properly manage the situation for the best for everyone.

Filed under: management recruitment agencies — Goto @ 11:03

18/05/2010

Healthcare recruitment affected by impending cuts

Healthcare recruitment agencies were warned by Nicola Hopper, national resourcing manager at Bupa Care Services that recruiters have to provide `value for money`.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation also stated that recruiters have an important role to play in providing a cost effective solution.

With George Osbourne announcing £6 billion cuts next week, there is an emphasis on quality of services being maintained within the Public Sector, with George Osbourne adding that they believe this can be achieved without affecting frontline services.

There is however a lot of contradicting information out there, that suggest that cuts will happen to frontline services and even the Royal College of Nursing, on data they have obtained from 26 trusts, suggests that 5,600 posts could be in jeopardy but worst case this figure could be as much as 36,000 NHS staff.

Union also warned that the NHS has put aside £2bn, to be used for redundancy pay-offs that will occur. Unison claims that the guidance given by the NHS framework for 2010/11, states that trusts should set aside 2% of their budgets for any one off commitments. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley added that trusts which manage to save this 2% figure can decide how to spend it and this does include redundancies.

My analysis of all this, is that although the ConDem are making the right noises, using phases such as `efficiency cuts` and frontline services unaffected. I think it is clear especially within the NHS that job cuts are inevitable and that frontline staff is an area that will be affected too. This does however mean that recruitment agencies will be used to maintain a level of service required, however like I wrote at the beginning of this blog, there will be a much larger emphasis on the quality of service and providing value for money.

Filed under: healthcare recruitment agencies,recruitment agencies — Goto @ 14:54

13/05/2010

No jobs, high unemployment, new government

The Office for National Statistics were released with John Philpott, chief economic adviser at the chartered institute of personnel and Development, stating that the figures send a clear SOS message to the new coalition government of the condition of the UK labour market.

Unemployment rose to 2.51 million, this is the highest it has been in 15 years. There are also 1 million part time workers looking for full time work and a concerning statistic is that people in the 35-49 age group are the hardest hit.

The concern with this age group is that, these people usually represent the breadwinners of the family, paying of the mortgage and bills. In the last 3 months 85,000 people in this group have left their jobs, a drop of 0.8%, which is much higher than the 0.3% drop across all age groups. Although this cannot be classed as a trend yet, many people will be keeping a close eye on this statistic.

Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, stated that her big concern is that the new government does not cut support for the unemployed. This is a particular concern in the public sector now, with £6 billion cost savings having to be found. However healthcare recruitment agencies will pleased to hear Cameron state that frontline services will not be affected by the cuts and the NHS overall will have a confirmed and committed spend levels over the next 5 years.

One more stat that was of interest from the ONS was that there was in fact an indication of wage growth. This grew by 4% on annual basis, from 2.5% last quarter, a sharp increase. Although strangely enough, it showed the private sector increase by 3.6%, whilst public sector wages grew by 4.4%, a situation that of course cannot be maintained.

Overall there is much to be concerned about and recruitment agencies in general should be able to give you a good indication of number of vacancies there are in your sector and what wage can be expected. The message got from all this, is that the new coalition government have got to get to work as soon as and I hope that the emergency budget being held in a few weeks time, will demonstrate how we as a country can cope in dealing with this very large debt.

Filed under: healthcare recruitment agencies,recruitment agencies — Goto @ 11:56

12/05/2010

Recruitment agencies hoping for England 2018 World Cup bid

Recruitment Agencies as well as many other businesses will be hoping that this Friday, England will be submitting a successful bid to FIFA. Inspections are then due in July with the final vote made on the 2^nd of December.

High profile business leaders such as Lord Alan Sugar and British Airways boss Willie Walsh, have both stated how landing the tournament will not only be an honour but will have huge financial benefits.

In much the same way construction recruitment agencies have benefited from the 2012 Olympics then there are of course the businesses that benefit from when the event is taking place.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers have also calculated that if England would win the bid to host the World Cup in 2018, this should have financial rewards of around £3.2 billion. A much needed boost to the economy.

England will be competing against Russia, joint bid from Spain with Portugal and joint bid from Holland with Belgium.

Filed under: construction recruitment agencies,recruitment agencies — Tags: construction recruitment agencies, recruitment agencies — Goto @ 10:37

11/05/2010

April reports on jobs

Recruitment agencies are all to aware of the recruitment and employment confederation’s report with KPMG, that shows from month to month the state of both permanent and temporary staff appointments in the UK.

The latest reports show that there is still a rise in the number of appointments in April, however the indication was, that it was not as strong a rise as the month before. Employment agencies showed a rise in permanent staff salaries and temporary staff hourly pay rates also increased at its fastest rate for over 2 years. Inflation also rose at its sharpest rate since March 2008.

The REC’s, chief executive, Kevin Green said that whoever is in charge after the elections, their job is to ensure that they can still stimulate the job market whilst reducing expenditure and without creating a public sector recession. This is of course a worry with many public sector recruitment agencies, that the prospect of 1000’s of public sector jobs being slashed. Many private sector clients have coped with the recession by utilising initiatives such as short-time work, sabbaticals and pay freezes, these strategies have shown to work and it is crucial that these innovative techniques are used in the public sector as well.

Bernard Brown, from KPMG services, stated that the public sector have realised the scale of the task in front of them and are preparing themselves for a public sector recession. Therefore it would be no surprise that the increase in the `reports on jobs` may come to a halt.

Filed under: employment agencies,recruitment agencies — admin @ 11:05