Strong IT and ‘robust’ engineering contractor demand, alongside nursing and medical care, have kept Scotland’s overall contract and temp worker demand in positive territory and ensured temp and contract billings slipped only marginally into contraction.
The December Bank of Scotland Report on Jobs shows that Aberdeen’s contract market is the most buoyant, as only Aberdeen-based recruiters reported higher contract billings alongside higher rates and increased candidate availability. This suggests that the ramping up of activity in the UK’s oil and gas and renewables-led offshore industries is resulting in increased contractor hiring.
Scotland’s IT contracting sector is also significantly outperforming the UK as a whole: IT & computing in Scotland leads the temp and contract demand league tables showing the “strongest” growth in December and with an index of 62.6. Any index above 50 signifies growth, and IT & computing’s score suggests IT contractor demand in Scotland is particularly strong.
In contrast, December’s KPMG/Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) Report on Jobs, which provides data on the entire UK labour market including Scotland, has IT & computing in fifth place at 51.4 – although that’s still in growth territory, it is over ten index points behind its Scotland-only equivalent.
This growing disparity in demand could be explained by Scotland’s hosting of several IT centres of excellence, including video games, financial IT and support for the offshore and energy sectors.
Despite the positive contracting market news, Bank of Scotland Chief Economist Donald MacRae is pessimistic in his assessment of Scotland’s labour market prospects. “The labour market is showing the negative effects of the slowdown in the Scottish economy,” he says. “The Scottish economy is struggling to maintain growth momentum in the face of the global slowdown.”