The REC 2022 conference took place virtually last Thursday, 30 June. 

MP Matt Hancock talked about dyslexia and the need for greater neurodiversity in the workplace, for example. He talked about his own experiences of dyslexia, his dyslexia campaign in parliament and why having a more neurodiverse workforce leads to better decision making. Hancock urged recruiters to be more mindful of neurodiversity during the selection process. 

Speakers emphasised the need to boost diversity particularly in senior level roles. During the panel discussion ‘Recruitment and the economy: a client’s view’, Jayne Haines, MBE and senior vice president of talent, learning and organisation development at the pharmaceutical company GSK, said recruiters have a pivotal role to play. “Help us not see it as a strand agenda,” she said. “It’s not, ‘we need women now, we need people of ethnic minorities now’. How can we just say, ‘this is how we’re going to be as we go forward and how do we embrace all of that and bring that value’? Help us challenge ourselves on the inclusion agenda.”

On the back of those comments, Helen Dickinson, OBE and CEO of the British Retail Consortium, recommended that recruiters purposefully take longer when hiring for senior level roles to ensure inclusivity. 

Another dominant theme at the conference was skills shortages and the state of the labour market, coupled with the economy and market conditions. In his opening address, Neil Carberry, CEO at the REC, talked about the ongoing skills shortage and the labour market. “This pattern of high demand has sustained one of the strongest markets for recruiters that we have ever seen,” he said. However, he also said the UK could be at a particularly crippling point, as a result of higher inflation rates, the fallout from the war with Ukraine, labour shortages and the wider economy. 

Seamus Nevin, chief economist at Make UK, the body representing manufacturing and engineering in the UK, also talked about the labour market and how the adverse economic situation is affecting the manufacturing sector. “From Brexit to Covid-19, to rising energy bills to new logistics challenges, spiralling wage demands, increased raw material costs, the highest tax burden in 70 years and now an increasing scarcity of labour, manufacturers have really seen it all the last few months,” he said. “And the rising cost of doing business is really starting to hit the economy harder than ever before.”

Nevin said the current situation has affected recruitment intentions in the short term. “The latest ONS stats indicate that there are more job vacancies than unemployed people for the first time in the UK since records began,” he added. “The unemployment rate has fallen to a record low of 3.7%, its lowest for 50 years. At the same time, job openings are at a record high of 1.3m.” 

With this backdrop, Nevin said employers need to think carefully about how they are going to attract, recruit and retain people. 

Most economists predict a period of turbulence for the next 18 months to two years, exacerbated by the need to transition to a green economy. 

The overall message? There’s a lot for recruiters to be thinking about and grappling with in terms of skills shortages and market forces. 

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