The Business Exchange Bath & Somerset Issue 4: Summer 2017 | Page 12
RECRUITMENT
EMPLOYERS TURN TO TEMPS
TO FILL SKILLS GAP
Nine in ten UK employers (89 per cent) will increase or maintain
their temporary workforce in the next three months, according to
a survey by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC).
This is a rise of nine percentage points compared to findings
reported in March (80 per cent), suggesting that businesses may
become increasingly reliant on temporary workers.
The increasing demand for temporary
workers appears to be in response to
falling availability of candidates to fill
permanent vacancies. Following the
publication of official data showing that
UK unemployment has fallen to 4.6 per
cent (the lowest level since 1975) a recent
JobsOutlook survey of 606 employers
revealed:
• a third (33 per cent) report having no
spare workforce capacity within their
organisation
• nearly half (46 per cent) anticipate a
shortage of candidates to fill permanent
roles in the next year, with construction,
engineering & technical, and health
& social care highlighted as particular
areas of concern
• of those that use temporary workers,
65 per cent do so to manage peaks
in demand, 57 per cent need them to
respond to growth, and 48 per cent
say they want to gain access to key
strategic skills.
The increased use of temporary workers
may have a financial burden for some
businesses, with one in five (19 per cent)
claiming that agency workers earn more
than permanent staff in equivalent roles.
REC chief executive Kevin Green said:
“This looks like a tipping point for the jobs
market. Faced with chronic skills shortages,
some employers are giving up on trying
to fill permanent vacancies, and instead
looking for temp resource to ensure they
have the manpower needed to meet
demand.
“For jobseekers this means there are
opportunities out there to boost earnings,
because employers are prepared to pay a
premium for people to fill vacancies on an
interim basis. We could see this become
a more attractive option for people in the
context of rising inflation and poor pay
growth.”
Emma Summers director of leading
South West recruitment firm Juice
Recruitment said: “Juice has certainly seen
this trend locally, with a recent increase
in demand for temporary workers. We are
seeing a growing sense of urgency about
the skills shortage being experienced by
employers and the temporary to permanent
option certainly seems a more popular
route.”
To read the data tables in full visit:
www.comresglobal.com
Keep up to date with recruitment news via
Twitter by following:
@RECPress
@JuiceRecruit
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12
THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2017