Recruitment agencies are bracing themselves for another dip in the economy as more unwelcomed news trickles through.

The announcement over the weekend that BAE Systems will have 3,000 job cuts is a sign of the times and one of the places that are expected to be hit the hardest is Lancashire facility. This is on the back of slower sales for its Typhoon fighter jet.

This was not a total surprise as chief executive Ian King said last February that the group was suffering from restricted spending from its clients and that 15,000 workers had to be offloaded globally and warned at this point that further job cuts will have to be made in the near future.

This was not the only bad news with E.ON’s announcement that they will be cutting 500 support staff in its Coventry and Nottinghamshire offices after selling their distribution arm of their network. There was also a statement reiterating the company’s need to focus on keeping costs down so to keep costs low for the consumer.

Overall I would be concerned with the state of the global economy it seems that every time we see signs of green shoots, this is closely followed by bad news. I think that this has happened so many times now no one believes we will come out of this recession any time soon and expect more of a rollercoaster ride.

Recruitment agencies are on tender hooks at the moment, with the uncertain situation of the AWR about to come into force from the 1^st of October.

The new EU job law stipulates that any temporary worker that works for the same employer for more than 12 weeks will be entitled to the same rights, pay and benefits as a permanent member of staff is causing many problems for employers. To the point that realistically half a million workers may lose their jobs just before Christmas, why you may ask? As 12 weeks after the new regulations kickS in, brings you up to Christmas time and so decision time for employers to either keep temps or remove them.

This issue has come at an awful time in the UK as it is trying to rebuild its economy and one of its greatest tools is a flexible work force, which is what temps provide. The idea of forcing employers to make these temps in essence permanent after 12 weeks, will greatly reduce their dependence on a flexible workforce and will probably result in employers holding out for a longer period of time before committing new staff, resulting in slower growth as well.

There is still a chance the government might withdraw from the AWR in the eleventh hour but being the 19^th September today it is extremely close to deadline day. I for one am amazed these conditions are still going ahead, imagine an employer will have to put temps on a pension scheme after 12 weeks and be involved in all appraisal reviews and staff related performance bonuses, the logistics of doing all this is much more extreme than people first think.

It is one thing to try and improve working conditions and create equality but it is another to remove the carpet beneath Employers feet in using a quick, efficient and a cost effective method for increasing productivity or services. I do hope the government take one more look at this ill timed regulation and look to at least delay its introduction until a full analysis of its implications are derived.

More and more people are using Gotorecruitmen.co.uk to find and send recruitment agencies their requirements.

The website that is now in its 3^rd year has gone from strength to strength with such agencies as Reed, Hays, Select and many more endorsing the website by listing on there. The website continuously strives to improve its performance and to this end Gotorecruitment.co.uk is proud to announce a new version of the website to be released in the coming weeks.

The main focus was enhancing the directory’s usability and making sure each end user understand the capabilities of the website, so we have had a thorough refresh and improved functionality. This has also stretched right through to the backend system where we have listened to the thoughts of many users and made some essential tweaks.

The overall site and goals have stayed the same and we have stayed true to our unique selling point of one roof for all aspects of using recruitment agencies, we hope you will enjoy this new version and we will have a more in depth article nearer the time of release.

The success of Gotorecruitment.co.uk is down to all of you and we thank you for this and hopefully this new version demonstrates that we will reinvest and improve what is already a successful service.