Insights

During the COVID-19 crisis, we have been publishing special editions of JobsOutlook alongside the full reports. These special editions include survey data from only 200 employers, but give a more up-to-date picture of employers' confidence levels and hiring intentions. In the first half of July, employers' confidence in making hiring and investment decisions rose to net: +4, up from net: -9 in early June. This is the first time since February that levels of hiring confidence have been in positive territory, indicating that more employers now feel that their ability to make hiring and investment decisions is improving, rather than deteriorating. Business confidence in the UK economy remained low overall but also improved between June and July, rising from net: -46 to net: -40.

Lockdown hit a week before I was made redundant, the final and long-expected stage of a merger process that had absorbed the previous 18 months. I had planned to make the most of the forthcoming free time: visiting friends and family, watching sport, a break somewhere where the sun was warmer and the beer colder. That was all shelved with the stay at home order. I’d expected to spend more time at home, but perhaps not this much. Richard “Blues Boy” Lambert is an experienced chief executive of membership organisations, whose mojo is definitely working.