According to the latest KPMG and REC UK ‘Report on Jobs’, the fall in recruitment is due to firms cancelling or postponing plans to take on new staff, and is attributed to the outbreak of Covid-19, which has thrown the UK and most of the world into economic and societal turmoil.

“Great uncertainty over the outlook underpinned the first reduction in overall vacancies for over a decade,” the report says. “Weaker demand for staff also led to a softening of pay pressures, with both permanent and temporary pay rising at slower rates.”

The availability of staff continued to decline, but at the weakest rate since mid-2013 amid reports of increased redundancies.

The results reflect the responses to questionnaires sent to a panel of around 400 UK REC consultancies and compiled by IHS Markit.

REC CEO Neil Carberry said: “The coronavirus pandemic has put the labour market on pause. It does mean massive disruption in the short term, but we need to remember that this has to be done in order to protect businesses and save lives.”

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