Sunday 4 January 2015

UK job market at the start of 2015

Welcome to 2015! I hope you have enjoyed the seasonal slowdown and have spent the first few days  of the year not sticking to your resolutions!

My blogs will be slightly more focused from here on in and I'm starting with a brief (very brief) picture of the UK job market as we head into the year.

It's been clear for a while that what once were green shoots in the employment market are now grassy meadows, we are back in a candidate driven market with many industries enjoying a more buoyant time with the ability to hire new staff in significant numbers.
Without a doubt, many recruiters and indeed managers still feel the reverberations of the recession and the impact it had on employment, it's taken a long time to get to this point but we're heading into 2015 with more positive expectations for the year ahead.

But why focus on the positive?!! We're always so good at finding the negative spin aren't we (our media are at least) so this is mine - research currently suggests that unfilled posts in the UK are costing the economy £18 BN a year. Eighteen billion - that's huge!!

Empty seats are not great and every recruiter's aim is to get the right bum on the right seat, no bum means a cost to the company but also to the wider economy due to time lost, money lost, inability to fulfill contracts on time etc etc - this paragraph came out wrong but you know what I mean.

I'll link to the article below but the issue effects nearly every industry, social, healthcare (obvs), finance, retail, professional services and more.

Its an issue that is already being talked about in the longer term with an ageing population, a lack of qualified candidates and the problems we will face in the future but that is not for now......as I would be here for ages and you would have left in a flurry of boredom.

So what does this all mean? To be honest, I'm not sure, every day you read something different about our economy and the employment market, what you read and what it means in a general sense will depend on the writer. One thing is for sure, we have jobs once again, there are jobs out there, they don't suit everyone I know but as I said, those green shoots have defiantly shot and it would seem that in some industries they're impossible to keep up with.

So what does this mean to you as a job seeker? Well I would firstly say that you shouldn't expect your job search to be easy, there is still a huge amount of competition out there, particularly at Graduate level but if you're committed and intelligent, if you know your market and can demonstrate that in your application through study and/or experience then you are off on the right foot, of course if you're not sure where to start then get in touch with us.

So 2015 - who knows what will happen as we move through the weeks and months, one thing is for sure, no one can predict it, no matter how many facts and figures they give you.

Article: http://www.onrec.com/news/news-archive/unfilled-vacancies-costing-the-uk-economy-%C2%A318bn-a-year

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