Labour market statistics - REED comment

Tom Lovell, group managing director of specialist recruitment consultancy REED, comments on the labour market statistics published today by The Office for National Statistics:

“Despite a gloomy economic forecast from some quarters, REED’s employment figures show a reasonably steady picture. Our data, which tracks interviews attended and jobs taken, shows that although demand in some sectors has fallen back since August, it has increased in others, keeping overall demand for candidates in September largely level with August’s figures.

“The REED Job Index also shows that demand for new staff has increased by more than 20% when compared to September 2010 across the private sector as a whole. This increase does go some way to offsetting the contraction in public sector employment.

“Temporary jobs are also up on 2010, with the number of temps placed by REED up 6% compared to the same period last year. Also, when compared to August this year, the number of temporary candidates placed rose in September by 3%.

“While the data does show a small drop in the number of candidates placed in permanent jobs during September, there are some key areas including retail and technology that saw an upturn. We also saw rises in the number of interviews attended for permanent jobs in these sectors as well as the scientific and financial sectors.” 

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