UK Labour Shortage.
It’s a Post-Lockdown Boom - not a symptom of Brexodus.
The labour shortage facing the UK is not the result of a Brexodus of foreign workers but of a post-lockdown boom, an examination of the current jobs market has concluded.
Recruiter Randstad looked at changes in the ratios of vacancies to applications for jobs in the UK’s private sector - using the volume of applications as a proxy for candidate volumes.
In the first half of 2020, Randstad said they had 14 applications for every private-sector job advertised. In H1 2021, this ratio fell to 8 applications per job.
The change in the ratio of candidate demand to supply of office jobs alone was marginally better with the ratio falling from 15 applications per vacancy to 9.
But the change has not been driven by a collapse in candidate numbers.
Randstad says that, while the number of applications for private sector roles fell by 15 per cent, the number of vacancies rose by a greater degree - increasing by 60 per cent.
The biggest change in the supply and demand was in engineering roles. In the first half of 2020, there were 17 applications per vacancy. A year later, there were only 4 applications for every role.
At the other end of the spectrum, the supply of business support staff - administrators, executive PAs, business managers, receptionists, data entry, PRs, marketing professionals, and HRs - has held up much better, with the ratio of applications to vacancies only falling from 16 to 12 over the course of the last 12 months.
UK businesses being set up at record rate. The creation of new firms at Companies House hit a record high this year, up by 24 per cent. Lloyds Bank Business Barometer report says business confidence was up to 36 last month, its highest point since April 2017.
ADVICE TO EMPLOYERS LOOKING TO NAVIGATE THE LABOUR SHORTAGE
Randstad says that agile employers need to adapt to secure their first choice of candidate.