Copy article

February 2023 jobs market data

ended 13. February 2023

On Tuesday morning at 07:00, we're getting the latest official jobs market data for February. It will dominate the day's news. If you'd like the chance to see your views in the local and national media, please respond to any or all of the following questions:

  • How confident are companies about hiring right now in the sectors you cover?
  • Are companies that are still recruiting struggling to find candidates? If so, why?
  • Overall, has the balance of power shifted back to employers given the economic conditions?
  • Are companies increasing their salaries (for existing and new staff) to help people through the cost of living crisis, or are many simply unable to?
  • The Bank of England has said it believes unemployment will peak at a far lower level than it thought 3-4 months ago. Do you agree? 

Any other thoughts, jot them down. Keep your responses short and punchy.

8 responses from the Newspage community

Copy all

Star Quote
Copy

Azar Hussain
Managing Director at Rebel Recruiters
As tech recruiters working with some of the most in-demand candidates in the UK, we've found that recruitment activity is still high, but not at the crazy, unsustainable levels of this time last year. While there are more candidates now available, salary expectations are still high, a residual effect of the extreme candidate-driven market of 2022. This is creating a strange tension as employers can currently find the skills they need but not at the salary levels they want to pay, and quite often not at the salary levels they pay their existing team members. Either you pay over the odds and risk alienating existing staff or new staff have to accept they won't get what they want.
Copy

Editor
Mary Maguire
Managing Director at Astute Recruitment Ltd
Businesses that need to recruit are recruiting, certainly for accountancy and finance staff. The first quarter of the year can be quieter, but this year is a repeat of last year with a big uptick in demand for specialist hires. Companies trying to lock out agencies by hiring directly have a much weaker chance of filling their roles. Increasingly we're hearing back from clients who tried recruiting using an alternative, only to find applicants cancelling interviews due to counter-offers. One CEO admitted just today they made an error, asking "can you help? 4 of 6 applicants have cancelled their interviews!" Companies need to be more discerning. A good recruitment partner is literally worth their weight in gold at this moment.
Copy

Editor
Samuel Mather-Holgate
Independent Financial Adviser at Mather and Murray Financial
Jobs data shows that the labour market is still tight. However, jobs are shifting from high paid high skilled to low paid, low skilled, gig-economy and zero hours contracts. Since Brexit there has been a brain drain on talent and an opening up of lower skilled jobs as European immigrants have gone home. This shift in labour will be felt for years to come as our growth in GDP and productivity don’t keep up with our neighbours.
Copy

Editor
Wes Wilkes
CEO at IronMarket Wealth
It looks like the picture is quite nuanced with a dearth of candidates in some sectors and some firms left with gaps in many positions finding it difficult to fill.
Wage growth and the job cycle is starting to mean revert a little but if we couple that with an 'on the street' view of busy businesses in many sectors, I tend to agree that the unemployment number is likely to peak at a lower level and a UK recession appears that it may be shallower than we thought even in October last year.
Copy

Premium
Lily Shippen
Managing Director at Lily Shippen
Companies are confident in hiring right now. There has been a real sentiment shift in the past two weeks and we are taking on new roles constantly. The more upbeat signals from the Bank of England around inflation and the economy generally are feeding through into the average business. Companies now must back this up with speedy hiring processes and not drag their heels with interview processes. The balance of power still favours candidates for now but we expect this to start to this shift as the year goes on.

Copy

Steve McSherry
Head of Sales at Daktela UK
We are an international company operating in the UK and struggle to find staff for most roles we place today, which is impacting our business in the UK. We provide solutions to the Contact Centre market and nearly all of our customers are struggling to fill vacancies since Brexit. We have increased salaries to help retain staff as power has shifted from the employer to the employee in our sector. Many of our customers are reaching out to use our Artificial Intelligence technology to fill the gaps caused by a lack of staff.
Copy

Lauren Thomas
Economist at Glassdoor
Companies have slowed hiring, with job vacancies continuing to fall. Data from Fishbowl by Glassdoor also suggests a rise in hiring freezes, with discussion of the topic increasing over 400% in the second half of 2022. Layoffs are another story: despite the reports of mass layoffs in tech, ONS data shows redundancies remain below their pre-pandemic norm. Glassdoor’s data shows concern about layoffs is concentrated amongst tech employees, with Jan 2023 mentions up 262% year-on-year. However, those in other industries seem less worried, with mentions for all workers only increasing 51% year-on-year. Salaries are always a hot topic for workers, but there’s no doubt employees are concerned about their pay keeping up with today’s rising prices: discussion of inflation surged 188% from Jan 2022 to Jan 2023.
Copy

Nicky Acuna Ocana
Managing Director at Ambition
Within professional services firms, there is still a degree of confidence about hiring skilled workers. They understand that high-calibre employees are valuable assets to firms and the partnership group and that retaining and attracting talent is high up the agenda for many partner conferences. Many firms are already paying inflated salaries to attract new talent or to retain talent due to there still being a shortage of high calibre candidates that specialise in professional services. We have not seen many firms offering salary increases purely to help staff through the cost of living crisis. Instead, they have offered salaries that are at market rate or higher to secure experienced and talented professionals. Indications are that unemployment will peak then be at a lower level than was expected.