November « 2010 « Go To Recruitment Employment Blog

30/11/2010

GSK to create 1000 jobs

Pharmaceutical recruitment agencies were alerted by GlaxoSmithKline news that they wish to create a further 1000 UK jobs. This news would have pleased the government which introduced tax incentives to promote the UK as a country that innovates.

The “patent box” scheme means that any UK-owned intellectual property, implying patents has huge reductions in corporation tax. This incentive is by and large aimed at the pharmaceutical industry which runs its business on patenting its products.

The worry was a few years ago that other countries such as Holland were leading the way in attracting growth in Pharmaceuticals. However with almost a U-Turn view in UK’s approach, means that GSK will develop its first new manufacturing facility in the UK for 25 years.

The £500m facility in Hertfordshire will expand its current respiratory drug plant and also be a biopharmaceutical manufacturing plant. GSK will also be setting up a £50m venture capital fund for early stage healthcare companies that need investing in to grow, which will be a welcome boost to healthcare companies and healthcare recruitment agencies.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Goto @ 11:17

15/11/2010

NHS professionals to be sold

Large healthcare recruitment agencies might have heard by now that NHS Professionals, the state owned recruitment agency is currently looking for a buyer.

The controversial move to privatise the labour government set up to try and reduce overcharging from the private sector, has been loss making till now. It made a 6.2 million loss in 2009-2010 and overall has losses of £100 million.

NHS Professionals supplies 50,000 nurses for shifts nationwide and Neil Lloyd, chief executive says that the Health Trust are doing more and more outsourcing of their staffing needs. This kind of attitude benefits us and other agencies that claim they can lower costs per shifts by moving their staff banks to us.

The sale of NHS Professionals will be published in full through the European Union tender process.

I think this shows the naivity of the last government, I can’t understand how they thought a state owned recruitment agency would work. In fact it failed miserable even accumulating losses of up to £100 million. I would have suggested a better route to have taken is a regulation and tendering process of healthcare recruitment agencies in general and overlook how these agencies operate, which as far as I understand are now done through buying solutions who maintain the NHS staffing contract. This seems to be a better route to take because competition exists and this drives the price lower.

Filed under: healthcare recruitment agencies — Goto @ 10:52

10/11/2010

Crime does not pay

This is the message that a married couple learnt after being banned from running an employment agency for 10 years.

The couple were in charge of a recruitment agency Hire Management Ltd which the wife Amanda Howard was the director and the husband Mark Howard was company secretary. The issue arises in the fact that Mark Howard was employed by 2 companies ERA and Network Rail in a recruitment capacity.

The evidence showed that Hire management was raising invoices to these 2 companies and Steven was just approving them, even agreeing to pay invoices for candidates he had placed himself within his position. Addition to this, false expenses claims and advertising costs were raised again Amanda was raising the invoices and Steven was approving. The scam even meant that Network Rail paid over 3 years up to £1m, which was not required.

After the hearing Steven was jailed for 18 months and Amanda received a suspended service. This does no favours for transport and logistic recruitment agencies which in whole operate in a professional manner; it is just a shame people like this look to corrupt the system.

Filed under: Transport Recruitment Agencies — Goto @ 10:08

08/11/2010

3,800 ROK jobs in the balance

Construction recruitment agencies should now be aware of ROK the building and social housing repairs company that has new been placed into administration.

The company that was once valued at £450 million in 2007, has had serious financial difficulties as demonstrated by its half yearly accounts. Which has now resulted in PwC looking for potential buyers for the company, this news is obviously a worry for employees of ROK and potentially can affect 3,800 jobs.

ROK has ended in this situation because of the amount of scaling back many of its clients were doing when the recession hit and of course has drain much of it’s resources. Hopefully though potential suitors will recognise that the inherit value of this company is in its contracts and partnerships that it has built up over the years and this blip will hopefully only be short lived.

Filed under: construction recruitment agencies — Goto @ 17:09

01/11/2010

Manufacturers in positive mood

Manufacturing recruitment agencies would be pleased to hear that UK’s smaller manufacturers have shown an increase in employee numbers for the first time in 2 years.

The CBI’s report also showed that 31% of manufacturers expect production to increase in the coming months compared to 12% of manufacturers who believe they will need to reduce. These stats are definitely an improvement and shows that manufacturers in general are positive about the outlook.

It was not all good news though, with the CBI quick to point out that there are certain challenges, such as profit margins being reduced as costs rise. There are also hurdles to overcome when looking to finance any expansion requirements with manufacturers reluctant to use Banks they look to get credit through other financial vehicles.

In general this is a positive sign for the economy and is in line with the UK economy rising in its last quarter. However I do have a lingering thought that much of this expansion was before the coalition government made such drastic fiscal changes and as of yet I’m not convinced that this has yet been represented in the economy.

Filed under: manufacturing recruitment agencies — Goto @ 10:20