Wed 28 March 2012

Just over half of small businesses are confident of creating jobs in the coming 12 months, a 10 percentage point rise from the 41% confidence recorded this time last year, which overall job creation confidence has risen marginally, remaining positive.

This is according to the ‘Barclays Job Creation Survey 2012’, which questioned 670 executives of UK businesses of all sizes and found that 58% of firms intend to create jobs over the coming 12 months, compared with 57% last year.

However, companies with turnover of more than £500m were less confident than last year, with 70% planning to create jobs in 2012, against 85% in 2011.

Of the companies planning to create jobs, 82% plan to create middle management/skilled labour jobs, while 59% plan to create unskilled jobs and 21% will create senior management roles, the research finds.

It also shows that 71% businesses believe private sector job creation cannot compensate for public sector job losses, a slight reduction from last year’s 76% result, and that 35% of companies are “not at all interested” in employing ex-public sector workers.

David Roust, head of recruitment industry team at Barclays, says: “It is good to see smaller companies in particular more confident around creating new positions than they were last year. The challenge for the recruitment industry, however, is to support those looking for work to find the roles that fit their experience and skills.

“As larger firms appear more confident around investing in jobs in order to grow sales, rather than waiting for sales to increase before hiring people, we may see greater investment within the corporate sector in 2012.”