News has been full of gloom and doom about the economic state of the UK of late and if it’s not doom and gloom about the economy, then it’s been focused on the toing and froing of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.
In this month's newsletter, I'm sharing two articles with you. One with a positive spin and one with a not-so-positive spin. It's a confusing time and difficult for business owners to interpret. The articles I've featured about business growth and staff shortages are almost at odds with each other, though when you read them you can see that they both make sense in their own way.
According to HRnews “over ¾ of small businesses predict growth next year despite cost-of-living challenges”.
That’s certainly a different narrative from the one we've become used to in recent weeks. We can report that Aspire Jobs had its best-ever year in 2021 and that 2022 looks likley to be even better. This is not a brag, it is purely to demonstrate that although it is tough out there in the recruitment world, people are on the move and placements are happening.
We know our local recruitment market extremely well. We also keep a keen eye on the national picture. The British Chambers of Commerce recently reported that “Staff Shortages are Impacting Productivity”.
“A new survey by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) reveals firms’ recruitment struggles remain at record high levels. The data for the leading business group’s Quarterly Recruitment Outlook (QRO) for Q3 2022 was drawn from a survey of more than 5,100 businesses, 92% of whom were SMEs.”
“The manufacturing sector is facing the most severe recruitment challenges, with 82% reporting difficulties. This is closely followed by hospitality on 81%, logistics on 79% and construction and engineering on 77%.”
“The impact of this on business productivity is clear to see with 56% of all firms reporting they are operating below full capacity, rising to 71% of hospitality firms.”
At Aspire Jobs we specialise in permanent placements and fixed-term contracts only, we aren’t involved with temporary placements at all. Our view of some of the figures reported by BCC would be that the industries they’ve featured here are heavily reliant on temporary and agency staff, and so the productivity figures perhaps reflect the difficulty the temping recruitment sector is experiencing right now.
Are we having to work harder, faster, and smarter in permanent recruitment – yes! Throughout my career, I’ve never known it to be like this, but it’s rewarding to know that all the hard work we’ve put in has been worth it and that the Aspire Jobs business is in growth.
Our clients benefit from using a recruitment agency such as Aspire Jobs by:
- Saving time – our expertise allows us to hit the ground running. We know the market; we know what’s happening out there and we don’t waste time going down dead ends to have to start over again.
- We have access to a talent pool that they don’t, prospective candidates who may not be even actively seeking new job roles.
- Tapping into our network. We work hard to build, maintain, and sustain a network of business contacts in the Dorset and Hampshire business communities.
- We’re well respected and our boutique size allows us to be agile and nimble, there’s no red tape here, we act and act quickly to secure the deal.
So our view is that small businesses that don't heavily rely on temp staff are probably the ones driving the growth statistics, those that do are likely to struggle or come up with strategies to cope with the staff they do have so that productivity isn't affected so adversely.