It has been revealed by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) that there has been a modest rise in the demand for temporary workers. For recruitment agencies looking to place staff, their clients may want more short-term workers than normal, as many employees remain cautious about taking on staff in a permanent role.
Whilst May saw the slowest growth in permanent placement vacancies for five months, there was optimism that the sector was moving in the right direction, despite economic difficulties continuing to put pressure upon businesses; however, there were very different results in the temporary workers sector when the REC showed data collated from 400 consultancies working in the recruitment and employment fields. Here it was revealed that there was more demand for short-term workers than ever.
Recruitment expert Carmen Watson said: “As the economy continues to slow down, demand for temporary workers is rising, especially in certain sectors such as financial services, energy and logistics. More and more companies are using temporary staff to help them expand their bandwidth to cater for surges in workload without being saddled with unwanted overheads in fragile economic conditions.”
Ms Watson also revealed that many of the temporary work positions, including those in the financial, technology and logistic fields, could well turn from short term vacancies into permanent contracts if the economy continues to improve. This will provide jobseekers and recruitment agencies with the opportunity to keep their options open whilst enjoying the wealth of new jobs coming onto the market.
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