According to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation’s (REC) Report on Jobs for December, the number of staff being recruited into permanent positions by recruitment agencies has fallen for the third successive month. A small decrease in the use of temps by UK businesses was also recorded.

Discussing the report’s findings, REC chief executive Kevin Green said: “The report highlights a third month of contraction in permanent placements and a reduction in the use of temps for the first time in more than two years. While the jobs market is tough it remains resilient and is functioning well.”

He went on to emphasise that: “Employers are still hiring and using temps in large numbers; however they are starting the year on a cautious note and are taking their time to make workforce decisions.” Engineering, IT and technology all remained positive sectors for jobseekers.

Rise in graduate employment

It seems that some university graduates may also have more reasons to smile in 2012, as a new survey has predicted that graduate recruitment will be up by a substantial 6.4% on the previous year.

According to the Graduate Market in 2012, by High Fliers research (http://www.highfliers.co.uk/download/GMReport12.pdf), “The UK’s leading employers are expecting to increase their graduate recruitment by 6.4% in 2012, following a rise of 2.8% in entry-level roles during 2011.”

The report also claimed that employers in nine of 14 key industries and employment areas expect to recruit more graduates in 2012. Particularly significant increases in graduate job availability were predicted in Engineering/ industrial sectors, IT and telecommunications, high street banking and retail.

Graduates who have already completed work experience may have the most promising 2012, with many employers opting to recruit graduates who have already worked for their company. According to the report, approximately a third of entry level positions will go to graduates who have previously completed, “industrial placements, vacation work or sponsorships – and are therefore not open to other students from the ‘class of 2012’”.

Top UK firms agree to make recruitment fairer

Finally, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has convinced a number of major banks and legal firms to sign up to his ‘business compact’, which aims to widen recruitment to give a fairer chance to those from less privileged backgrounds.

Mr Clegg commented that: “This is an important step towards a society where it’s what you know, not who you know, that counts.”

A company that is REC Audited means it has undergone a robust audit package that validates compliance with the Employment Agencies Act and Conduct Regulations 2003 and REC Code of Professional Practice. The REC team of professional auditors conducts a thorough audit of the business, going through various areas of compliance

Shane Hawkins, Managing Director of C2 Recruitment said: “We are committed to delivering the very best service to our clients and the REC audit demonstrates that commitment.

“The audit was very intense and examined a range of areas. The full audit is used as a tool to ensure that our agency is legal and compliant and also checks our practices. I am pleased to announce that C2 Recruitment passed first time, with flying colours.

The REC advises both jobseekers and companies who purchase recruitment solutions to look for the REC audited logo, the logo is confirmation that an independent assessment to the highest possible standards has been carried out.

After being in business for a number of years C2 Recruitment has gone from strength to strength and now has a new office in Birmingham for its retail recruitment arm of the business. C2 Retail Recruitment has experience in working with some of the UK’s leading retail companies. From global chains, to high street brands C2 retail boasts a wealth of recruitment experience in all areas of retail – both UK and Internationally.

The new Birmingham office is located at the prestigious “Baskerville House” near the NIA Arena.

Shane added “We are delighted to have secured our offices at Baskerville House. The facilities are simply fantastic and feedback from our national clients has been really positive”.

If you are looking to recruit new staff, or if you are looking for employment within the commercial sectors, then contact the team at C2 Recruitment. They are happy to offer any advice and assistance in recruitment.
Visit their contact page here C2 Recruitment.

A report from CBI/PwC does not paint a pretty picture for the Financial Services sector and has many recruitment agencies concerned about 2012.

The stats already show 9,000 jobs lost in the last quarter of 2011 and a further 11,000 jobs are expected to be lost in the first quarter of 2012. There are many attributing factors to this, one being that sentiment in the city has fallen further since the third quarter with the eurozone debt crisis weighing heavily on this.

Another concern by the banks was non performing loans, something that is expected to rise over the course of the year, with people unable to pay mortgages and credit cards. This also meant the availability to get credit from banks would be more problematic, whilst banks are extremely cautious about who is eligible for credit.

Whilst this all paints a very negative picture, as with most points there is another side. The actual volume of business done in the Financial Sector in fact grew at its fastest rate since 2007 and is in fact expected to rise again in the next quarter.
What does this all mean? In my opinion the Financial Sector very much mirrors sentiment in general and whilst we all thought we were coming out of this recession, it is quite clear now many countries in Europe are struggling to survive and without knowing which side of the fence the Euro will fall, i.e. intact or separate it is extremely difficult for financial institutions to have a long term commitment. I believe it is a case of lets be very cautious until we know what path this is taking.

Automotive and Manufacturing recruitment agencies would have received a welcome boost by the news that JLR are looking to expand their Halewood plant.

Sources at JLR are saying that they are looking to invest £100m in there expansion plans creating 1,500 jobs. The news is also on the back of further good news, which is that JLR are building a £355m engine plant in Wolverhampton and redeveloping its Solihull factory. The reason for much of its growth is due to JLR sales are up 30% year on year and so expected to reach record profits.

JLR has also shown plans to massively invest into future projects, investing £1 billion a year into R&D and planning to launch 40 new cars over the next 5 years with also the intention of partnering a Chinese car maker so they can start manufacturing in China.

Much of the basis of this optimism is that many car manufacturers are showing 10% growth in profits, considering the economic climate this may initially seem strange but a closer inspection will reveal this is mainly due to the demand from the emerging markets.

The UK job market outlook for 2012 is already looking grim with the report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) stating 210,000 more people will be unemployed.

The main problem has been that much hope was put on the Private Sector offsetting the job losses in the Public Sector. The reality is that this has not been the case with much of the Private Sector apprehensive of there respective markets and so cautious with adding new workers. We should also not forget that the drop in the predicted growth in the UK for 2012, which now stands at an expected 0.4%, I believe this figure used to be around the 2% mark at one point.

The bad news does not stop there though, with the CIPD predicting that unemployment will keep rising to 2.9m by 2013 and entry level jobs being the most affected.

John Salt from Total Jobs also stated that there was a “deep structural problem” in the British labour market, as even specialist industries such as Engineering are struggling to recruit due to a skills gap.

The signs ahead are of course a concern and it will be a telling year of how our overall the economy will span out over the next 5 to 10 years, what is clear is that recruitment agencies will have to do a lot of ground work to get the jobs in and I can imagine these agencies will almost be falling over each other to fill these vacancies.

The Bank of Scotland said that although they had a rise in permanent staff for the 14^th month running this was at its lowest rate and on temporary staff it showed its first decline in over 2 years. The index used to gauge employment figures slipped to 51.4 from 53.9 (above 50 is a positive trend).

The other news coming out of Scotland is unemployment rate which showed for the first time a higher proportion of unemployed compared to the whole of UK. Scotland jobless rate is now set at 8.5% compared to the UK which is at 8.3%.

Reports such as these have meant First Minister Alex Salmond wants an urgent UK-wide jobs summit, with Salmond seemingly unable to defend his economic policies with as such conviction as previous months, previously able to point to Scotlands declining unemployment figures and having a positive effect of the jobless market figures. This now seems not to be the case and serious discussions need to happen to ensure the UK does all it can to try and come out of this recession.

Recruitment agencies in Edinburgh have recorded higher permanent placements and recruitment agencies in Aberdeen have been showing an increase in temporary staffing but overall the market is struggling and so a closer look at economic policies is needed to try and encourage any growth possible.

Economic problems have arisen in a number of EU countries and the Chancellor George Osborne has admitted if the rest of Europe slips back into recession it will be difficult for the UK to avoid. An even worst scenario would be the dismantlement of the single currency.

There was also talk by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) that the Bank of England will have another bout of quantitative easing to the amount of £125 billion, however there are also some reservations that we can not keep coming to this solution.

The job market in general is becoming very tight with many employers seemingly aware of the future uncertainty. Therefore they have either stopped recruiting all together or just hiring sporadically till the market becomes clearer. My view is that the Recruitment agencies will have to depend on strong employer relationships to ensure that they get any jobs out there but how tough the market will be, will very much depend on a number of economic factors.

A report from Astbury Marsden showed that financial recruitment agencies are in for a tough time with fewer new jobs in the city compared to the previous month.

The report that showed there were 2,670 new jobs in the city also showed that for every new job that existed there were 5 qualified candidates available for it. A huge increase to the beginning of the year which showed 1.7 qualified candidates per new job.

Banks such a Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group which have both cut 27,500 jobs and are continuing to strip further costs as the uncertainty of the UK and EURO zone is becoming more widespread and of course having a huge effect on confidence within the markets.

This is not good reading for Job Seekers in this sector, who are being pitted against high calibre individuals but the flip side to that statement is that employers now are able to get the cream of the talent.

Banking and financial services have a major influence onGreat Britain, accounting for 10% of its income and so news such as this does not fair well forGreat Britainin general. My view is that confidence in the markets is at its lowest and I hope that the stats are at its lowest not just because of the economy but also because for the festive holidays which naturally results in less opportunities in the job market.

George Osborne is set to announce The National Infrastructure Plan, a plan that will please many recruitment agencies by creating more jobs around the country.

The money for these projects will come from the British pension fund, as well as Chinese investment and £5bn will be from further public cuts. The total earmarked for this project is £30bn over the course of the next few years.

The aim will be to improve various roads and rail lines, build a Transpenine Express line between Leeds andManchester, a metro system inNewcastleplus many other projects. No doubt this will help the employment rate which is currently at its worst for 17 years.

The main aspect from this initiative is the fact the fund will mainly come from the British pension plan, previously this was considered locked funding and so unusable to the government but see other economies use this funding effectively has allowed our own government to analyse the potential of having access to this fund.

I see this initiative as a positive, it is obvious our economy needs an uplift and although this won’t have a huge impact on the bigger picture it is definitely in my eyes a step in the right direction.

Their findings estimated that 56,000 jobs have been lost or are going to be lost across theUK, a figure that has doubled over the year. The reasons for these cuts are due to the £20 billion in efficiency savings that the NHS has to produce, something that is meant to be reinvested into the NHS, however RCN chief executive Dr Peter Carter claimed that there is no evidence of this.

The other point made by the RCN was that not only will there be cuts but a downgrading in Nursing roles, this will allow a reduction in salary for Nurses but still be the same role. This comment has been denied by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, who claimed to have no knowledge of roles being downgraded.

The overall view is that these cuts will be detrimental to the service provided by the NHS. It is unclear how these trusts expect to operate to the required standard and at the same time reduce costs drastically. I for one had hoped the reduction of costs would have come from much of the administration rather than frontline staff, however appreciate that it is difficult how the NHS can achieve this £20 billion cost saving.