idealpeople blog

We’ve been waiting for the doom and gloom industry to start affecting the job market for some time now. Whilst the market for hiring tends to be some way behind other aspects of the economy, the warning signs are starting to come out of the recruitment industry, it seems.

There have been several recent reports and indicators of this - the Office of National Statistics reported last week that the number of people unemployed has gone up by 60,000 in three months to June and Hays announced earlier this week that the UK job market is reaching levels last seen in the recession of the late 80s and early 90s.

To top it all off, a report produced jointly by KMPG and the REC has found that the number of available jobs in all industries except the nursing and medical profession has fallen for the fifth consecutive month. Alan Nolan, a Director at KMPG, described the most recent fall as “yet another sharp drop” in the UK recruitment market.

So how will this affect the technology industry? Well, we thought we’d share some of our own data which suggests that - at the moment - things are holding up relatively well. Now, we’re not going to come out and say that the survey released this morning is wrong, but at least for now both the demand for new talent and the number of hires taking place within the technology industry seems to be stable - albeit that there was a sharp drop in August (but this was preceded by a very good July…).

The demand for new talent in 2008, measured by the number of new vacancies (by the way, we’re using a scale here, so whilst the trends are valid, the numbers aren’t).

The number of hires in each month in 2008, measured by number of Idealpeople candidates hired into new position in 2008 (by the way, we’re using a scale here, so whilst the trends are valid, the numbers aren’t).

So maybe it’s not all doom and gloom - but we will give you regular updates.

In the meantime, there’s been quite a lot of work going on on our corporate website, including a new job search functionality. You can also register your CV with Idealpeople through the blog, or subscribe to the blog for updates.