REC: Jobs Outlook - July 2023
Wednesday, 26 July 2023
Confidence
Across April-June 2023, business confidence in the UK economy continued to rally, improving to net: -41 from net: -43 in February-April 2023. Moreover, sentiment notably improved across the quarter, from net: -52 in April to net: -31 in June.
Along with this improvement, the net balance of employers’ confidence in making hiring and investment decisions was bolstered, with the balance of sentiment rising by 5 points to net: +7. And confidence similarly rose across the quarter, from net: +1 in April to net: +14 in June.
Permanent recruitment
Do you think the number of permanent workers in your organisation will increase or decrease in the next three months?
Whilst the UK-wide balance of employers’ sentiment towards short-term permanent hiring remained static at net:+18 between February-April and April-June 2023, there were notable regional variations. At net: +25, forecast demand was highest in London (up from net: +20 in February-April). In contrast, it was just net: +11 across the remainder of the South, outside London (down from +12). By organisational size, large (250+ employee) enterprises were the most optimistic (net: +22) compared to net: +17 within both medium-sized (50-249 employee) and small (0-49 employee) organisations.
Temporary recruitment
Do you think the number of agency workers in your organisation will increase or decrease in the next three months?
The balance of short-term agency worker hiring intentions dropped by 10 percentage points between February-April and April-June 2023, from net: +18 to net: +8. This was driven by a sharp decline in sentiment in May (net: -3), after which there was a bounce-back in forecast demand in June (net: +10). Sentiment was highest amongst the UK’s smallest (0-49 employee) enterprises (net: +19). In contrast, it was marginally negative (net: -3) amongst the largest (250+ employee) organisations and marginally positive amongst medium-sized (40-249 employee enterprises (net: +3). Moreover, whilst 15% of large employers planned to increase agency headcount, almost one in five (18%) planned to reduce numbers.
Topical question
The most common way in which employers currently seek to encourage diversity through their recruitment process is to use inclusive wording within job adverts, as cited by 55% of respondents. Nearly one in three (29%) also state their interest in diverse candidates within their ads.
Once applications are in play, one in five (19%) have a policy of name-blind CV submission and 20% use diverse interviewing panels.
In terms of future plans, a further 11% intend to adopt a diverse interviewing policy. In contrast, just a further 1% have plans to remove names from CVs.
