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UK jobs market - Dec 22

ended 13. December 2022

The latest UK (un)employment data is being published by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday of next week at 07:00. If you're a recruiter, HR or jobs expert and would like the chance to see your views in the local, national and trade media, please answer any or all of the following Qs:

  • Are employers confident right now about hiring or are they battening down the hatches?
  • Who holds all the cards right now? Employers or candidates/employees?
  • Are employees proactively asking for pay rises to keep up with inflation? After all, wages are being pummelled in real terms as inflation is at 11.1%.
  • Are companies, many of which are under pressure for no end of reasons, struggling to offer pay rises?
  • Do you think unemployment is going to rise during 2023? If so, by how much? 
  • Why are some sectors, such as hospitality, struggling to recruit? What other sectors are struggling?
  • Are employees still demanding flexibility or are they increasingly happy to have a job as inflation and interest rates soar?
  • Are companies starting to call staff back into the office as the economy deteriorates, or is flexible working here to stay now that the Govt is putting laws through to that very end?

Any other thoughts or insights on the jobs market, jot them down. Note there is a word limit now of 175 words.

11 responses from the Newspage community

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Premium
Lily Shippen
Managing Director at Lily Shippen
Employers are still confident with their hiring but more measured in their approach. Interview processes are far less rushed than a few months ago. The roles being recruited for now have been through a rigorous process to get sign-off. It is mainly business-critical roles pushing forward to being hired. The ‘nice to have’ roles take slightly longer to move through the process. The balance of power is swinging back towards being in favour of employers. Candidates still have options, and there are fewer job-seekers than jobs, but companies may not be as flexible as they would have been a few months ago. The more candidates hear it’s a candidate-driven market, the more candidates start to look. The rise in salaries also caused passive candidates to begin to look. We are now starting to see that trend level out.
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Katie Elliott
Director at HR Katie
Whilst there's no doubt the economy is starting to deteriorate, hybrid working, with a mix of days in the office and days at home, is here to stay for now. Having people back in the office is great for a company's culture, and staff members remember the advantages of those face-to-face contacts. However, the genie is well and truly out of the bottle when it comes to the advantages of homeworking, with reduced commutes, saving money on travel and food on the go, and being at home for a better work-life balance. How genuinely flexible employers are going to be with this setup for the long term remains to be seen.
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Danielle Asano
Managing Director at Cherry Professional
With the future feeling uncertain, many workers are now staying put, prioritising job security. What is apparent is, when it comes to attracting talent, it is still very much a "buyer's market" and employees are in the driving seat, looking for improved benefits, flexible working, purpose and culture, and someone to invest in them. The bottom line for us is that resilient, good-quality recruiters are needed and valued more than ever as we head into 2023.
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Rob Tice
Employment Lawyer at BMcPrecept
Employers are struggling to find staff for both skilled and unskilled roles. We have seen a number of cases of people having to hire employees that they perhaps would not have a year ago, just to fill a role. We are also seeing employers delaying decisions on performance management as they need to keep the employee despite the employee’s performance not being at the level needed. Employers are also at risk of losing their best employees and they are having to take steps to keep them. Pay is an obvious start but employers are looking at other more innovative ways. Increasingly, employees are valuing benefits rather than just salary. That’s why hybrid and more flexible ways of working are here to stay. Other incentives, like employee benefits, are another way to attract and retain staff.
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Lauren Thomas
Economist at Glassdoor
Employees appear increasingly concerned about layoffs, with discussion on Fishbowl by Glassdoor up 440% year-over-year in November. But the gap between public perception and employees’ actual experience of redundancies seems to be widening; ONS data shows that redundancies are still below their pre-pandemic average. Inflation and economic concerns remain top of mind for employees. Mentions of these terms in last month’s Glassdoor reviews increased over ten times from November 2021. The priority for employers is maintaining staff levels and productivity all while weathering economic uncertainty. One bright spot in the economy is healthcare. The sector has historically proven to be a safe bet in terms of job stability. The UK's ageing population and acute shortage of healthcare workers means this stability will continue.
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Nicky Acuna Ocana
Managing Director at Ambition
Despite the fact the economy is almost certainly entering recession, we are still in an employee-led working world. What will be interesting to see, as the economy contracts and recruitment slows down, is if this starts to flip over to being an employer-led market. It is important to remember that we have had unprecedented job vacancies in the past 18 months and, unlike previous recessions, we are heading into a tough market with high levels of employment. This means that any drop in job flow is a return to a more normal market as opposed to pushing into high unemployment rates.
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Samuel Mather-Holgate
Independent Financial Adviser at Mather and Murray Financial
We all know that the economy is currently like a car sliding down an icy hill. There's only going to be a bad outcome, we just don't know what it is yet. As the recession bites there will be more redundancies so I expect to see unemployment rising and no chance of pay rises in line with inflation. That said, there are still plenty of vacancies in lower paid sectors like hospitality and care so the labour market could remain tight, but shift to a much lower paid country. Expect this to continue into the Spring of 23, but not long after. Our economy is still dynamic enough to pivot out of a recession much earlier than the Bank of England expect it to last. Growth will return before summer, but much damage will have been inflicted before that as the recession will be sharper, but shorter than predicted.
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Helen Tinnelly
Founder & CEO at Propelelo
Each day we are approached by employers who are desperate to hire, particularly in the tech space. And this despite the global headlines about tech redundancies. It's still very much a candidate's market with vacancies in software development, cloud and cyber security particularly pronounced. There’s a fundamental mismatch in the tech market between open opportunities and available skills. If the government is serious about making Britain an international talent hub, it must start investing in longer-term talent frameworks and employers, for their part, must commit to new ways to source and foster diverse talent. Flexible working alongside other benefits such as support with childcare are ways that employers can attract candidates, beyond direct wage increases.
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Louise Burns
Company Director at Nineteen Recruitment
Even though the economic storm clouds are gathering, it's still very much a candidate's market at least in the education, health and social care sectors. More and more employers are having to turn to the expertise of professional recruiters to identify appropriately skilled and experienced candidates because the number of people applying for jobs is so low.
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Legend
Robert Bolohan
Co-Founder at Lotuly
It's a tough world out there! There's a turf war between employees and employers. Employees want more flexibility and work from anywhere but some employers need to see them perform in the office. It's not survival of the fittest but survival of the smartest. Flexible working is the future and you can't con people into working from an office anymore no matter how big your pool table is or how many beers you get on Fridays. Unemployment is either going to rise or simply more people will take the risk and give it a try on their own. A lot of companies struggle to offer pay rises but only because they fear the uncertain and want some of their best employees to stay, this will have a domino effect for some, if one leaves because of lack of payment more will follow suit.
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Natasha Maddock
Co-Founder at Events Made Simple
Many businesses are already struggling to increase pay in line with inflation, and whilst concerns about the cost of living crisis are likely to put off some candidates from looking for new roles, staff retention is still likely to be a critical issue for many companies in the coming year. Looking ahead to 2023, we believe that company culture and, in particular, the option for flexible working will continue to play a key role in helping businesses to attract and retain talent. Allowing staff to work from home can also help companies save on office running and heating costs. However, businesses do need to ensure they give teams the chance to meet in person throughout the year to ensure they create a positive work environment where individuals can build valuable business relationships with colleagues.