Shrinking Market or Candidate Short ? or both !
Where do you start on a question as complex as this! Well, as a recruiter of some years, I’ve been through ups and downs, but at least when its up you know its up and when its down you know its down. Currently it feels more like the grand old Duke’s men being neither up nor down.
That’s why the question “What is going on in the UK employment market right now” went through my mind, part in exasperation and part in genuine curiosity because there are apparently contrary pointers seemingly every day.
Despite being obvious, it is important to note that there is not one singular employment market but one where candidate and employer experiences will vary from sector to sector. From those unable to find employment to those unable to find employees, all things can be true at once. What we are looking for here is a sense of the sum of a combined UK employment market.
Within the technical and professional sectors we operate in, certain trends are developing:
- Application numbers can be exceedingly high, but matches to the role advertised low or sometimes non-existent.
- Employers are hiring but often it seems cautiously so.
- Employers combine roles or their budgets are falling behind market expectations.
- Employees aren’t generally looking but when they do are often swamped with opportunities and gone in sixty seconds.
- Candidates are increasingly discerning – needing more information to be put forward for consideration. Given the choice of opportunities, this would correlate.
- Post covid, candidate’s needs for flexible arrangements are increasing.
- Similarly, employers are willing to engage in flexible arrangements where possible. Those less able are finding hiring even more difficult.
All of this is anecdotal but very much felt over the past months. Now we are into summer it will be hard to draw any conclusions for a while as the usual holiday recess begins, then what will the effect of the early election and new government initiatives and policies be when we get to see them. I certainly don’t know, but rather than look to the near future I’m still trying to figure out what the market has been doing in H1 2024.
The ONS Q2 survey of June 24 sheds some light but it takes some unpicking. Take just these two extracts for example:
- Payrolled employees in the UK decreased by 36,000 (0.1%) between March and April 2024, but rose by 201,000 (0.7%) between April 2023 and April 2024.
- In March to May 2024, the estimated number of vacancies in the UK decreased by 12,000 on the quarter to 904,000. Vacancies decreased on the quarter for the 23rd consecutive period but are still above pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic levels
These two appear to point to a cooling of the employment market, both in terms of vacancy numbers and those in payrolled employment, and yet both measures are still up on pre-covid levels. The period between late 2021 and 2023 was an abnormally buoyant hiring market as it rebounded from lockdown, where vacancy numbers were high but so were candidate numbers. So, any talk of “cooling” in the employment market has to be considered against that period as being an exceptional one. Numbers relative to pre-covid levels being a better indication and would go some way to explaining why it does not feel like a flat employment market but rather a difficult one in which to hire.
Back on the anecdotal evidence- in some technical fields in which we specialise direct sourced candidates are notably more keen to scrutinise a role before providing consent to be submitted for consideration. In my particular area (sustainability) this has always been the case, but we are seeing it across all technical engineering and professional roles. I would suggest that with a higher percentage of people moving jobs late 2022-2023 the knock-on effect is that right now there are fewer people reaching a natural point of wanting to change jobs, and those that do can, and are, being selective.
Knowing this before starting your recruitment process is important, make the adjustments to your process that you can to maximise your chances from outset. How you do that isn’t a secret but that is a whole lot of material for a different post. What is surprising me is the level of disconnect between hiring entities and those they are seeking to hire, meaning we are increasingly nudging our clients into a position to be successful.
