Recruiting now
Experian's latest Insolvency Index highlighted some good news this week: the number of firms going out of business is lower than it has been for a year, with 0.09 of businesses failing in August, compared to 0.11% in July. However, amongst small firms (11-25 employees) the insolvency numbers increased by 19% year on year.
For those workers lucky enough to remain in employment, 2010 looks like being another year of difficult pay bargaining and below average pay rises. The Labour Research Department's annual pay round analysis revealed that the number of longer term pay agreements in the public and private sectors is likely to decrease and salary freezes or low increases are likely to dominate next year when many settlements will bump along at between 2 and 2.5%.
Civil servants may face the bulk of cuts in public sector jobs next year, according to Chris Williamson, an economist at Markit. Highlighting the figures released by the ONS for public sector debt in September, Williamson told Recruiter magazine that cuts must be considered inevitable in the public sector, where "consultancy, managerial and admin roles" look particularly vulnerable with a forthcoming election meaning that cuts in certain areas, like nursing and teaching, would be more difficult to justify to the electorate.
The CIPD's latest quarterly Job Satisfaction survey has revealed that workers are no longer simply happy enough to be in work - perhaps a sign of more general confidence in an impending recovery? The CIPD's employee job satisfaction score has dipped to +37 from +46 in the spring, with the percentage of people who would ideally change jobs climbing from 34% to 40%. The CIPD warned that a lack of satisfaction is a danger to productivity and hence competitiveness, which could compromise recovery.
Financial recruitment received at least a superficial boost when a shocked nation discovered that city bonuses were set to increase by 50% compared to earlier in the year. The centre for economics and business research has revised its earlier forecast that city bonuses would hit £4.1billion, now stating that they will reach £6 billion. This rise is attributed to sharp increases in profits in the banks and financial sector institutions. This rise is seen as a result of the lack of competition in the market.
The financial jobs market was issued with a warning this week by IT recruiter Parity. A lack of skilled IT professionals could seriously endanger the financial sector's ability to emerge swiftly from the recession, as companies are placing insufficient emphasis on the need to re-skill and resource people and departments in time to cope with future new demand. The Chief Executive of Parity, Alwyn Welch, commented: "...companies have been quick to cut costs on key skills to deal with the downtown, but now they must react equally quickly to bring in the resources they need to support a return in demand for their products and services."
Is our financial industry a ‘young man's game'? Well, if that is how it is seen, it has to change according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission's Trevor Phillips, who this week highlighted the difficulties faced by female workers and those over 40 in the financial sector. Having recently revealed serious gender salary discrepancies, the commission claimed that there was an unfair tendency to change the roles and responsibilities of workers returning from maternity leave.
Leading international recruiter Robert Half released a third quarter financial statement this week: revenue was down by 37.4% in quarter three, with the finance and accounting division slumping by 60.4% and Accountemps by 34%. Despite this, the Chairman and Chief Executive Max Messmer stated that "...we saw some improvement in revenues in September and early October."