But talent dearth still plaguing employers.
Traditionally, the summer months are quieter on the HR recruitment front, with vast numbers of HR professionals taking annual leave.
However, this summer seems to be bucking all previous trends and across Heads Resourcing Group of ourselves, Procurement Heads and Executive Heads, we currently have more than 100 live roles.
We are not alone in seeing this unusual pattern emerge, with the latest Recruitment Trends Snapshot report from The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), highlighting that the professional recruitment market has continued to perform exceptionally well with huge increases in year-on-year vacancy rates and placement figures.
The monthly data points towards steady summer hiring despite the usual dip associated with the holiday season.
The date, which was provided by cube19, revealed – unsurprisingly – that year-on-year figures for both permanent and contract vacancies have shown marked increases, up 43% and 53% respectively.
With Covid restrictions ending, these spikes show no signs of waning.
The annual figure growth is in line with Vacancysoft’s research, which in its National Trends report showed that companies directly published more than 210,000 professional vacancies in the first half of this year, which represents only 3.6% fewer than during the entirety of 2020.
APSCo’s data also revealed that, while vacancies for permanent roles dipped by 3% month-on-month and contract vacancies stayed the same, the daily tracking data post the 19th of July when compared with the first two weeks of the month show that all metrics either held steady or increased, a telling trend in the midst of what is the start of the holiday season.
The war on talent
The professional recruitment sector has a key role to play in the road to recovery.
While it is fantastic to see the professional jobs market perform so well, and hiring activity bounce back, the widely reported talent shortages could have a real impact on the overall recovery.
Ann Swain, Chief Executive of APSCo said, “The professional recruitment sector clearly has a major part to play in our continued road to recovery. While the recruitment sector is certainly on an upward trajectory, there are challenges ahead not only relating to the pandemic but also surrounding the widespread talent shortages that are beginning to impact many sectors as the economy opens up and firms ramp up hiring activity.”
Joe McGuire, Chief Revenue Office at cube19 said, “It’s great to see the industry continuing to perform in such a strong way and candidate short markets are always the best place for good recruiters to earn their crust. This combined with talk of ‘The Great Resignation’ means that even if candidates aren’t proactively looking for roles, a good number are likely to be open to new opportunities when approached, which will add fuel to the fire. We are moving into the holiday season which means placements might slow next month but with vacancies still being added at a very healthy rate, we may see some trends being bucked.”
If you are looking for support with your next HR hire, schedule a call with Jen here, connect with her on LinkedIn or email her via jennifer.gaster@hrheads.co.uk
