FINANCE RECRUITMENT BY PROFESSIONALS FOR PROFESSIONALS
​SINCE 1992

Unemployment - lowest in 45 years

News out today backs up what we in the recruitment market are seeing. Unemployment is at its lowest in 45 years and employment has risen to 32.75 million, up 28,000 in the three months to the end of May. This brings the unemployment rate nationwide to just 3.8%. Wages are also growing at a rate of 3.6% a year. When you consider that the average weekly wage is now £468 and that is still £5 lower than the pre recession peak in 2008 of £473, there is certainly more growth in wages to come. Both of these factors, a low unemployment rate and a growth in wages are meaning that we are increasingly seeing companies struggling to find good candidates for their roles and this will not change anytime soon. . If companies can not raise their wage level then they need to be creative about their recruiting and look at flexible working or job shares. They need to look at older workers wanting to continue to work beyond retirement age and above all they need to be as non prescriptive with their job descriptions as they can be in order not to narrow the field of options open to them. Have a good week. Jeanette

June/July UK Report on Jobs

Cavill Robinson is one of 400 agencies nationwide contributing to the UK Report on Jobs. Produced by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and KPMG, it gives a monthly update of the state of the jobs market. James Stewart, Vice Chair of KPMG comments on this month's job market as follows: "Brexit stagnation continues to seize up the jobs market as the slowdown in recruitment activity continues. Permanent staff appointments fell again in June, the fourth month in a row, while subdued confidence ensured that growth in temporary billings remained historically weak. “As we approach the summer holidays, the worry is that vacancy growth – which held close to a multiyear low in June – is unlikely to bounce back as firms take a relatively cautious approach to hiring. Uncertainty is also likely to further dampen staff availability, as candidates are reluctant to change roles at this time. On a sector basis, IT & Computing continued to need more workers while construction and retail saw reduced demand. “Looking ahead, conditions across the labour market are likely to remain restrained against a backdrop of political and economic uncertainty before companies can start to make more informed decisions on their long-term hiring.” Jeanette Robinson, Cavill Robinson's Managing Director comments: "Whilst there is a slight slowdown in the Cambridgeshire marketplace, there is still a high demand for staff and a severe shortage of quality candidates. This is being caused partly by political uncertainty causing people to be cautious about changing jobs and partly by the robustness of the local economy and high employment rate. It is hard to forecast too far ahead whilst the Brexit drama continues."

The importance of "gut feel" in recruitment

I watched part of the "debate" between our prospective Prime Ministers this week and found myself wondering what makes a great Prime Minister and can we spot that by measuring them against a list of attributes or do we have to just go on gut feel? Would the great Prime Ministers of the past have stood up to the kind of scrutiny that the current applicants for the job are going to have to undergo? Would, for example, Churchill with his fondness for drink, his ability to spend money like it was going out of fashion, his love of the high life and his depressive bouts have even made it on to the shortlist to become Prime Minister these days? The truth is that great Prime Ministers often have great faults as well as great strengths and it isn't always the most obvious person that ends up in the annals of history. No-one thought Margaret Thatcher at the beginning of her time in power would have ended up as one of the 20th century's great Prime Ministers. Having interviewed for years, it isn't always the obvious candidates that make the best applicant for the job. Sometimes someone comes along and they are missing bits of the job description and would not make it through to the next round if we were doing a tick box exercise against the job spec. Despite that, my gut feel can be screaming at me that I should put this person on the shortlist because they "have something". It may be potential, it may be charisma, it may be a fantastic personality. When this happens, they usually are successful at the interview and go on to be a success in the role. So, whilst recruitment gets driven ever more by IT solutions, I believe that we should not ignore the human gut reaction. It is still very important in our decision making. Have a good week. Jeanette