UK recruitment up 25% year on year

Just like graphic cards and CPUs, there are a lot of metrics for measuring the health of an economy. Arguably one of the strongest indicators is the number of jobs available. A report just out from Reed Recruitment shows that the UK is well on the way to recovery. KitGuru pulls out a calculator and clipboard to investigate.

Up to the summer of 2008, most of the world was bouncing along – stronger than ever before. Then, suddenly, banks across the world realised that people could not repay 120% mortgages when they were not earning any money. The closer the banks looked at the kind of risks they'd been taking – the more stupid they felt. The people running the banks had long since ‘stolen' all of the money and now there was none left. “Why should the rich few, who stole the money, have to repay it?”, they asked, “Surely that's the job of the grunt in the street”. And so the governments agreed and proceeded to rob the man in the street to cover up for the man on the yacht. Add in a few wars to distract people – and you have capitalism at its finest.

As the world pulled out from the depths of recession, Reed (UK's biggest recruitment company) decided to create a new index. It set the parameters found in the market at December 2009 as ‘100' and has been tracking things like ‘jobs available' and ‘earnings' ever since.  It may or may not be 100% scientific – but it is certainly a good barometer of what's going on in the market. The real market. The one where people place real job adverts, for real money, in the real world.

OK, so let's just do a quick look at the size and depth of this index – to decide if it makes sense. Reed normally carries over 110,000 job adverts – which have come in from more than 9,000 different recruiters. Big numbers. OK, we accept the validity of the Reed Index.

• 131 to 128: Demand for workers was slightly higher in February than March
• 100 to 125: Year-on-year demand increased by 25% in March
• Under 50%: The number of public sector jobs being advertised is under half what it was with the 2010 Labour government

All interesting, but what about the technology sector specifics?

KitGuru readers can breathe a huge sigh of relief. Jobs in IT and the telecoms industry have increased 47% since the index started and 45% since March 2010. Hooray!  [Note to self: Must go and buy more gadgets to celebrate – Ed].

Much as it may sadden you, KitGuru is also closely watched by marketing companies across the globe, so let's take a quick look at the market for spinners. Also up – this time by 23%.

Regionally, things look better for people in the West Midlands (up 37%) and East Anglia (up 29%) as well as London (up 32%). One of the only regions to post a small downturn year-on-year downturn was Northern Ireland, down 10% – but even that figure is still up 10% on December 2009 when the Index started.

The salary scale paints a slightly less appealing picture. While there are plenty of jobs out there, the salary levels seen at the start of the index, have hardly moved at all, overall.

One sector has managed to BANK an increase in salaries of more than 27%. Do you feel SAFE in guessing which market sector ACCOUNTS for such a RISE IN RATES?  Yep, it's the high-street mob and their cohorts in the City. While the engineers (-8%), manufacturing (-9%) and social care (-33%) sectors suffer huge falls in salary – the bankers weighed in a nice, fat bump in pay. What a surprise.

Martin Warnes, Managing Director of Reed said “The sharp rise in job creation witnessed in January and February has slowed, indicating that economic recovery should not be taken for granted. Indeed, rising inflation, rising unemployment figures and international turbulence have been reminders that the economy remains fragile”. Wow. He's just full of good hope, isn't he?

KitGuru says: We have almost crawled out of the hole that the BANKS created for us. With a lot more hard work by the majority of the World's citizens, we will soon have enough money in the banks for them to get robbed again. Happy days.

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