UK Recruiters Cautious About Downturn

A survey of recruitment consultants has found recruiters are cautious over the downturn. 74% were worried about the recession and 58% said it would have a severe effect on recruitment but the majority thought it would have only a moderate or limited effect on the sectors they worked. Construction and manufacturing recruiters expected to see the biggest impact on employment while engineering recruiters felt it would have a limited effect.

The survey carried out by recruitment exchange TalentRevolt also found that recruiters were having difficulty finding qualified candidates with 48% saying they had problems sourcing qualified candidates. Engineering and IT were the sectors picked out as suffering from a skills shortage.

A third of recruiters were planning to cut advertising spend with printed press and mainstream job boards most likely to be dropped. Business networking site LinkedIn along with referrals from colleagues and candidates were set to take their place.

The Agency Worker Directive came in for criticism and while 69% thought it would provide better conditions for temporary workers two thirds said it would reduce the number of temporary positions offered.

TalentRevolt founder, Greig Harper commented, It's a difficult time for recruitment but it's encouraging to see that some sectors are still performing well. It's important we continue to invest in the engineering and IT sectors to maintain a skilled UK workforce and allow technological investment to help end the recession.

To add to the negative outlook 53% of bosses won't be paying for their recruiters to have a Christmas or end of year celebration. IT and engineering recruiters were most likely to celebrate with bosses in construction recruitment most Scrooge-like.