Contractor demand bounced back strongly during May 2013, according to APSCo’s monthly trends and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC)/KPMG Report on Jobs. Temp billings recovered following a fall in April, and contract rates increased.
“This month’s data is a strong indicator that the jobs market, the unsung hero of the UK economy over the last 18 months, is picking up pace,” notes REC chief executive Kevin Green. “Permanent employment is at a six-month high while the use of temps is also growing after last month’s blip.
“Recruiters tell us that employers are more optimistic and are planning to increase their temporary and permanent hiring,” he adds.
APSCo’s data highlights that demand for accounting and finance contractors increased by 2% between April and May, the first increase shown by its data since September 2011.
The monthly trends report also notes that “engineering remains the most resilient of the professional sectors, with skill shortages still dominating the picture”. That appears to be a positive aspect for contractors as the report goes on to say: “This is evidenced by the increasing number of vacancies versus a falling number of placements, with the contract market having to take up the slack.”
Recruiters told REC that the increase in billings was as a result of increasing client workloads, and is borne out by the Report on Job’s demand league table for May. Only construction is in negative territory, and then only just.
Engineering retains second place, behind nursing/medical care, which is broadly consistent with APSCo’s findings. IT moves up to fourth place, from fifth in April and behind the ‘blue collar’ category of associate professionals and technicians.
Demand in May for both interims and financial contractors, in seventh and eighth places respectively, increased at a moderate pace, and were well into positive figures. Recruiters highlighted that contractors such as general engineers, advertising executives, digital marketers and software engineers were in particularly short supply.
John Nurthen, executive director of international development for Staffing Industry Analysts, which compiles the monthly trends on behalf of APSCo, summed up the year to date: “Our expectation for the UK staffing industry as a whole was that a weak first half of the year would lead to a better second half.
“The first half certainly seems to have lived up to expectations and the latest data in the monthly trends report suggests we can be cautiously optimistic about the remainder of the year.”