Employers relying on temps amid skills shortage

Organisations across all sectors want to recruit for permanent roles, with almost one in five (19%) actively looking to increase their headcount in the next three months.

And with 45% of employers expecting to face a shortage of suitable candidates over the next year, the latest JobsOutlook survey by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) suggests that businesses may be turning to temporary workers to meet demand as permanent hiring becomes more difficult.

The latest survey of 607 employers shows:

• a third (34%) have no spare capacity and would need to recruit to meet additional demand
• almost nine in ten (87%) intend to increase or maintain their use of temporary workers in the next three months
• a quarter (24%) transfer at least half of their temporary workers to permanent positions each year.

The REC has stated that its analysis of historic JobsOutlook data suggests that temporary workers are becoming more important as businesses react to the shortage of candidates for permanent roles. Since the beginning of 2017, an average of 55% of employers who recruit temporary workers do so to ‘respond to growth’. This compares to an average of 48% who made the same claim in the second half of 2016.

REC Chief Executive, Kevin Green, commented: “The majority of jobs created in recent years are full-time roles, but the data suggests that employers may need to bring in temps to fill vacancies because it’s so difficult to find candidates for permanent positions.

“The pool of people without a job is shrinking, and the number of people deciding to switch jobs isn’t rising as much as we’d expect. Employers are improving starting salaries to attract candidates, but even with this incentive people are unsure about taking new jobs at a time of economic uncertainty.

“In many cases, businesses are bringing in temps with the intention of converting them to permanent staff once they’re in the business. This is an example of how employers are seeking solutions to the skills shortage.

“Brexit is making the situation more challenging. In London for example, a third of people working in construction are from the EU and it’s difficult to see how firms will manage if their workforce aren’t encouraged to stay in the UK and continue to contribute to our economy.”