The slowdown in hiring across the UK amidst redundancies has increased at an “accelerated pace”, with the available pool of workers up for the ninth consecutive month in November, a press release from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) said.
A weak economic climate has resulted in a hesitancy to commit to new hires, the release said. Candidate supply rose at the most rapid rate since December 2020.
Permanent staff appointments contracted at the second-quickest rate since June 2020, while temp billings fell back into decline after two months of expansion. “However,” the release noted, “the latter fell at a much softer pace than that seen for permanent staff appointments, as some employers sought the flexibility of contract workers in the current economic environment.”
The latest data indicates that permanent vacancies fell in both the private and public sectors, with the latter experiencing a quicker rate of decline, the release said. The steepest drop in vacancies was in the retail sector.
“2023 has been a testing year in our labour market, with permanent hiring dropping and temporary hiring flat or growing only a little. That’s the story again in this month’s data, though the market is quieter overall as firms start to move activity into 2024 rather than pressing ahead now,” Neil Carberry, the REC’s CEO, said in the release. “The averages hide a great deal of variability in regions and sectors though. The Midlands and the North both saw strong performances for temporary and permanent roles, in sharp contrast with London and the South, with permanent hiring in London especially slow. The ongoing stronger performance of the private sector on new vacancies is also a notable positive signal.”
The estimated number of vacancies in the UK fell for the 17th consecutive quarter, down 45,000 to 949,000 from September to November, according to the latest data from the UK Office for National Statistics.
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