29 August 2019 | Herpreet Kaur Grewal
Latest data from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) shows that employers' confidence in the UK economy remains low.
However, the REC's latest JobsOutlook report shows that despite low confidence levels in the economy, employers are still looking to hire.
Forecast demand for permanent staff increased to net: +19 in the short-term and net: +21 in the medium-term in May-July 2019, compared with the net: +16 and net: +18 recorded in the previous quarter (February-April 2019).
But almost half (46 per cent) of employers of permanent staff expressed concern about finding enough suitable candidates for hire - with health and social care skills being the area they were most concerned about being able to access.
This should sound alarm bells across industry as 45 per cent of public sector employers reported having no spare workforce capacity at all.
Jobs Outlook is produced by the REC in partnership with market research consultancy ComRes.
The pollster interviewed 609 UK employers involved in hiring by telephone between 7 May and 25 July. Data was weighted to be representative of UK adults in employment by region, broad industry sector and public/private split.