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The latest on the recruitment market

The current recruitment market

The UK recruitment market continues to offer a challenging environment as a result of candidate shortages across a wide range of different industry sectors.  I have worked in the recruitment sector for over a decade and I've never known a market where candidates are in such short supply. There are several reasons for this:

• COVID and the impact that this had including the number of over 50-year-olds that decided to take a step away from the employment market, however more recently we have seen a return of this age group.
• Brexit almost came in under the cover of COVID.  This had the impact of reducing the supply of European workers coming into the country.
• Amazingly, over 1.6 million people are registered as long-term sick within the UK working population.
• Coming out of COVID, there was great business growth and development which required more people, at a time when there were less active workers

 
Recruitment Paradox

Coming out of COVID, much is being reported in the press about the fact that the number of jobs available has reduced for 17 months in a row. This makes it sound as though the employment market is in freefall, however, when you then look at the stats, it becomes apparent that the number of roles currently open is actually higher than it was back in 2019 before COVID.  The UK economy continues to be one that appears to be flatlining or in recession, however, the number of job vacancies that are outstanding indicates that UK business is still strong and confidence is still relatively high.   

What’s next?

At Apex Recruitment, we continue to look at ways of improving or increasing our candidate attraction. AI is becoming more commonplace within our business and this is helping us to drive efficiencies within our recruitment process. Moving into 2024 we will continue to look at how we improve our processes, increase our efficiencies and ultimately improve the level of service that we are able to provide to both our clients and candidates alike.

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