Contract hiring on the up, but skills shortages remain a concern

Latest data has shown that vacancy numbers continue to grow as the festive season approaches, with contract hiring up 1% month-on-month and 69% year-on-year.

That’s according to the latest Recruitment Trends Snapshot report from The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), which believes that these figures are indicative of the continued recruitment drive that the UK is experiencing as the economy recovers from the initial impact of the pandemic.

However, the APSCo warns that economic recovery in the New Year is at risk if appropriate action isn’t taken to address the skills shortages facing the UK.

Ann Swain, Chief Executive of APSCo, explained, “The hiring market remains buoyant which bucks the seasonal trend we usually see towards the end of the year when recruitment activity tends to drop. While we expect to see significant annual increases in hiring given the lockdown that was imposed at the end of 2020, the emergence of the new Covid variant last month and further restrictions being introduced ahead of the holiday season are understandably causing some concern.”

Swain added, “However, our data does show that vacancies increased towards the end of November, despite the on-going reports of Omicron cases spreading across the UK. Although it’s impossible to predict what will happen in the weeks ahead, the early signs suggest that the recruitment sector remains largely resilient for now. What does threaten this optimism, though, is the continued shortage of skills being noted across the country.

“While upskilling the UK workforce will deliver longer-term results, the immediate need is for a legislative environment that supports agile and international recruitment activity. Additionally, the Apprenticeship Levy is massively underutilised resource. Many of our largest recruitment members have enormous levy pots. However, they are unable to spend this on upskilling their large payroll of agency workers and independent contracting candidates due to the constraints of the levy and this needs to change.

To find out more about contracting please contact Jaime on 01442 795 100 or email jaime.thorpe@dolanaccountancy.com.