The merry go round – recruitment market conditions
There are certain market conditions that recruiters enjoy being in the maelstrom of. These conditions ignite the recruitment market where on one hand new roles are being generated by an expanding, confident economy, thereby enticing candidates to move jobs and take up these new roles. By return this opens opportunities to back fill for the candidates who are leaving, and so the recruitment merry go round begins.
However, these market conditions simply aren’t in play at present. Push and pull factors aren’t being exerted on the recruitment market at this moment in time, so the start button on the merry go round hasn’t been pressed. Push factors are being suppressed by the uncertainty surrounding the economy which as always is amplified by UK media agencies loving a bad news story.
Better the devil you know – recruitment inertia
Market indicators such as high interest rates and a high rate of inflation are having an adverse effect, reflecting in the fact that candidates are keeping their heads down and adhering to the ‘better the devil that you know’ principle i.e., they are not actively looking for new opportunities and it is taking a marquee recruitment opportunity to even bring them to the (interview) table.
When they are at the table however, the pull factors aren’t significantly strong enough to overcome this inertia. More often employers aren’t offering enough of a salary increase to make it worth their while to move. After all moving job always comes with an element of risk and candidates rightly want to be compensated for this.
Recently four of the largest global staffing firms reported declining revenues in Q3 2023. Whilst at Fusion Recruitment our business has to some extent mirrored this trend, the impact hasn’t been so dramatic. This is because we work with a select number of high qualify founder led and investor backed SME’s recruiting Financial and Operational Leadership; typically, our clients are well-funded businesses, operating on a sound financial footing with superb leadership, hence they are well placed to navigate any economic uncertainty.
Positive change will happen – the recruitment outlook
Businesses (employers) and employees dislike economic uncertainly. Therefore, it is going to take a sustained improvement of the economic outlook i.e., a solid financial half year resulting in an upturn of important economic indicators such as a real terms reduction in the cost of living for the merry go round to start.
This might well have started, however. In the coming months wage growth and the inflation rate are both expected to come down. After fourteen consecutive interest rate hikes, The Bank of England skipped one in September, the first time that interest rates remained unchanged since November 2022. Remember a New Year always brings optimism, which may result in the start button on the merry go round being pressed multiple times.
Fusion recruitment, part of fusion consulting group
Fusion Consulting Group, a multi-discipline consulting firm announced its entrance into the recruitment sector in 2023 through the acquisition of fdu Group, an established Executive search and recruitment firm, dedicated to Finance, Business and Operations to form Fusion Recruitment (#FR).
If this blog has as sparked something in you that you would like to discuss, or if you would like to deliberate anything recruitment related, please don’t hesitate to contact one of the team at Fusion Recruitment.
