Interestingly, as many as half of SMEs surveyed have changed their recruitment strategies because of Brexit.
The Albion Growth Report 2017 found that 15% of the 1,000 smaller sized businesses questioned have decreased recruitment resources, 10% now recruit in different ways and 9% have made redundancies.
The SMEs surveyed said that finding skilled staff, political uncertainty and cash flow were the biggest barriers to growth for their business.
Other skills and recruitment trends found in the report are as follows:
- SME’s in London (73%), the Midlands (64%) and Scotland (63%) are most likely to feel they lack expertise.
- Media and marketing (74%), manufacturing (72%) and IT & telecoms (67%) businesses are most likely to feel they lack expertise.
- SMEs in London (46%), the Midlands (42%) and the North of England (33%) are recruiting most.
- IT & telecoms (47%), finance and accounting (44%) and manufacturing (44%) businesses are recruiting most.
- Of businesses currently recruiting new staff, specialists in sales (9%), operations (9%) and software development and technology (7%) are most sought after.
Patrick Reeve, managing partner, Albion Capital, commented, “It is now obvious that SMEs are becoming more strategic in their approaches to recruitment in response to challenges from the external environment, including Brexit”.
“As the difficulty of finding skilled workers increases, in particular for sales, marketing and IT roles, SMEs are realising they must adapt. While there is evidence that recruitment budgets are shrinking, employers have also refocused their efforts on retaining existing talent, or being nimble and innovative to pursue new ways of finding staff.”
To find out more about contracting please contact Sophie on 01442 795 100 or email sophie.lewis@dolanaccountancy.com
Trusted by over 1,000 contractors |