Professional-level hiring a mixed bag, finds Robert Half and APSCo
9 July 2012
Hiring for professional level roles rose 17% month-on-month in June, shows data from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo).
Mon, 9 Jul 2012
Hiring for professional level roles rose 17% month-on-month in June, shows data from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo).
Meanwhile, a net 1% of UK executives plan to add professional-level staff in the second half of 2012, according to recruiter Robert Half’s Professional Hiring Index.APSCo’s chief executive Ann Swain says that its data shows “an improvement on the bad news from early spring, but it’s not clear that this is the beginning of a long-term positive trend. Nothing is certain… It’s a very unsettled picture out there”.
The survey of APSCo members finds that banking was one of the worst performing industries, while recruitment in the legal sector was strong and more than doubled in Scotland. Law was also the sector seeing the highest salary increase of any sector over the past 12 months at 14.9%.
Swain adds: “Growth in the permanent jobs market has been driven by recoveries in the two sectors hardest hit in the slump to December: IT and finance & accounting.”
These are the key sectors in Robert Half’s survey of over 600 executives at UK companies with more than 20 employees, with 49% expecting to maintain personnel levels in the last six months of the year, 24% expecting it to rise and 23% saying it would fall.
The balance was strongest in the South of the UK, with a net 9% of London firms planning to add headcount, compared to 3% in the rest of the South, while a net 4% of Midlands firms said they would reduce headcount.
The further North you go, the more this declines; a net 7% of firms in the North and Scotland said they would reduce headcount – although as APSCo’s data shows, Scottish lawyers remained immune to this trend.
Hiring for professional level roles rose 17% month-on-month in June, shows data from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo).
Meanwhile, a net 1% of UK executives plan to add professional-level staff in the second half of 2012, according to recruiter Robert Half’s Professional Hiring Index.APSCo’s chief executive Ann Swain says that its data shows “an improvement on the bad news from early spring, but it’s not clear that this is the beginning of a long-term positive trend. Nothing is certain… It’s a very unsettled picture out there”.
The survey of APSCo members finds that banking was one of the worst performing industries, while recruitment in the legal sector was strong and more than doubled in Scotland. Law was also the sector seeing the highest salary increase of any sector over the past 12 months at 14.9%.
Swain adds: “Growth in the permanent jobs market has been driven by recoveries in the two sectors hardest hit in the slump to December: IT and finance & accounting.”
These are the key sectors in Robert Half’s survey of over 600 executives at UK companies with more than 20 employees, with 49% expecting to maintain personnel levels in the last six months of the year, 24% expecting it to rise and 23% saying it would fall.
The balance was strongest in the South of the UK, with a net 9% of London firms planning to add headcount, compared to 3% in the rest of the South, while a net 4% of Midlands firms said they would reduce headcount.
The further North you go, the more this declines; a net 7% of firms in the North and Scotland said they would reduce headcount – although as APSCo’s data shows, Scottish lawyers remained immune to this trend.
