Learning and Development News

Summer jobs market

By TJ (13-08-2007)
0 Comments Comments
Article Rating:

Poor Best

Email to a friend | Print Version

Learning and Development News - Summer jobs market

The latest quarterly CIPD/KPMG Labour Market Outlook (LMO) Survey finds that the proportion of employers expecting to hire additional staff this summer is unchanged from the spring. This suggests that the impact of recent interest rate hikes on the demand for labour has yet to be felt and there are signs that employers are becoming more pessimistic. Net recruitment intentions are the weakest in any summer quarter since the LMO survey began and the balance of employers who expect to be employing more staff in a year’s time over those expecting to employ fewer has fallen from 22% to 19% since the spring.

Recruitment and redundancy outlook

  • Eighty-six per cent of employers responding to the latest Labour Market Outlook survey intend to recruit staff this summer, a similar proportion to that recorded in the spring survey (85%). 
  • Thirty-eight per cent of employers surveyed intend to recruit additional staff this quarter (again, almost identical to the spring survey figure of 39%). Net recruitment intentions are strongest in private sector services (where 52% of employers intend to recruit additional staff) and lowest in public services (18%). 
  • Forty-nine per cent of employers surveyed anticipate recruitment difficulties this quarter (compared with 48% in the spring quarter). 
  • The proportion of employers intending to make some staff redundant has fallen from 25% to 20% since the spring survey. In 41% of cases, ten or more employees will be made redundant. 

Pay outlook

  • Twenty-three per cent of employers surveyed plan to conduct a pay review in the summer quarter. Thirty per cent conducting a review expect the pay of their staff to increase on average by 3–3.5%. 
  • Pay expectations appear to have moderated slightly since the spring survey, with 20% of employers expecting pay to rise by 4% or more this summer, compared with 23% in the spring. However, the median expected increase of 3% is unchanged from the spring quarter, while 14% of employers, compared with only 1% in the spring quarter, didn't state an expectation in this quarter's survey. 

Medium-term employment outlook

  • Forty-seven per cent of employers surveyed expect their staff numbers to be about the same by summer 2008. More than a third (36%) expect to be employing more staff, but 17% expect to be employing fewer. 
  • There is a 19% positive balance of employers expecting to employ more staff over those expecting to employ fewer in a year's time – down from the 22% positive balance recorded in the spring. The positive balance is strongest in private sector services (43%), followed by the voluntary/not-for-profit sector (36%) and manufacturing (24%). The public services again record a significant negative balance, unchanged from the spring survey at –20%.

Back to top | Latest news

 

Readers Comment

Comment on this story here >

Be the first to comment on this news story