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Jobs market November 2023

ended 11. December 2023

Tomorrow morning, the Office for National Statistics is publishing the latest jobs market data, which gets picked up widely across local, national and trade media. Ahead of this, a few Qs:

  • How healthy would you say the jobs market is at present?
  • As 2023 draws to a close, are companies actively hiring or battening down the hatches ahead of 2024?
  • What are the main challenges facing companies seeking to recruit at present?
  • Have you seen any companies starting to make staff redundant or cut costs in other ways?

Any other thoughts or insights, jot them down.

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Scott Gallacher
Director at Rowley Turton
The current job market is robust, boasting numerous vacancies; however, the scarcity of high-quality candidates poses a potential barrier to growth for UK PLC. This is a pressing issue that demands urgent attention from the government. In addition to labour shortages, employers are contending with escalating salaries and benefits, along with a heightened demand for flexible working arrangements. These factors are adding complexity to the landscape, even for successful firms. While widespread staff redundancies aren't prevalent, isolated instances have been observed, often tied to companies navigating the loss of significant clients or contracts, necessitating workforce adjustments. Closures stemming from unforeseen circumstances, such as the demise of business owners without adequate succession planning, have also been noted. In summary, the job market presents a robust yet challenging scenario, warranting proactive measures and strategic solutions.
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Adam Myers
Head Of HR Consulting at Stellamar
Overall, there seems to be a great deal of optimism in recruiting and business growth as we go into 2024. The businesses we work with are keen to hire, although we are seeing more focus on entry-level roles. With the focus on entry roles comes the problem of how to attract and retain Generation Z as organisations, generally led by Gen X and boomers, are failing to connect with the incoming talent pool. This is going to cause problems in the labour market moving forward, as is the failure to recognise the need for good diversity, equity and inclusion policies, and accessibility practices.
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Hayley Grange
Founder at Twenty2 Recruitment & Consultancy
We usually anticipate a quieter November/December as it’s common for employers and candidates to wait until January to make any changes, but this year we are finding the opposite. Businesses have been eager to hire in preparation for January or, in most cases, before the end of the year. Hiring in November and December can be a challenge as it’s a busy time and the candidate market often slows down, meaning vacancies can outweigh candidates. Because of this, our advice is to submit your application and don’t wait as now represents a good window of opportunity.
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Adam Dolman
Director at Stirling Warrington
The job market in November and December to date has held up reasonably well overall, although there's naturally a slowdown ahead of Christmas. The issue facing UK employers, as has been the case for so long, is the shortage of qualified applicants. In some cases, bigger businesses that have hired large numbers of staff without much thought on salary over the past three years are now making cuts. One example is Spotify making 1,500 redundancies. This isn't new to today, as large tech businesses have been trimming their headcount since the fourth quarter of 2022. More redundancies are happening and more are on the horizon in 2024.