At the moment, I think every recruiter and hiring manager is discovering something of a pickle with the hiring market. And with over 1 million jobs on the market live. What is really going on?
Every conversation with hiring managers since June has been about the mystery of where the candidates are.
See we all had a belief that the end of covid, would spur a little jump start to the candidate market, seeing a jump in applications, and available candidates on the market.
June was promising, Jobs going live, and confidence happened. July/August, we all thought – “hey, it must be holiday period, people have pent up covid blues, and now want to go away, and not think about work?” I am mean who would, some people were working across their dining room table for over a year. They needed to get out of the house for a few weeks.
August ended kids back at school. Nothing really changed.
The end of September come, and here we are in October, with around 1 million open jobs. Where are all the candidates?
Theories like the “great resignation” (one I believe is quietly happening) emerged in the summer. Where the belief that candidate will resign their jobs in droves to better paid, better jobs in the market.
I still believe this is a thing, and happening in a more of a slow, quiet way, where candidates are resigning – but not in numbers. Not yet. There is “something in the way” of the market. And I am going to try and explain my theory what that is.
Let’s address the 3 big elephants in the room..
That is –
- Brexit & Immigration
- Covid & IR35
- Media & The Government
“Hang on Mark” I hear you say, “Is this going to be a rant about the government?” And the answer is YES and NO at the same time. But stay with me through the twisting tubes of reality we are in at the moment, and why most jobs are laying empty with no applications.
Brexit & Immigration
I can rant about Brexit till the cows come home. It has its place in the current issues, but it’s there, a giant lump of uncertainty. Whether you believe its great for the UK or not – it’s a contribution to the problem of the collective psyche.
It’s not stopping people alone from taking or moving jobs. But it’s adding to the temperature.
If anything, Brexit is kind of raising salaries, because of the lack of immigration, but there will be a threshold where no amount of salary increases, we do, will fill jobs. There is a very real problem. And that will trigger a resignation train, resulting in this told “great resignation”.
But holding it back…
Covid & IR35.
I’m chucking in the IR35 changes because that has a place in all the frustration, it’s caused frustration and changing markets. But the real problems that have come from the covid aftermath, in the supply chain, in driver shortages, in confidence in society, IR35 sits on the edge, breathing heavily.
But also, I feel we still have a collective problem after covid. People are tired, slightly worn away, and with the bumbling from disaster to disaster – people don’t feel the stability. This is what is causing the lion share of the issues.
Back in 2009 to 2011, the last impact globally for jobs, in the Banking crisis. We saw confidence up around 2012. I remember it well. I remember 2012/13 being an extraordinary year for jobs. Plenty of candidates. Confidence was high.
This time around it’s the other way, plenty of jobs, not enough candidates. Companies are confident of their future and have a held back business plan – but now believe they can go full pelt into 2022 – and need people!
Candidates are unsure… why?
Media & Government
Whatever your conspiracy theory you want to employ these days. The media is there for whoever/whatever the agenda is and is undermining confidence.
“Hey, BP is closing a few rural petrol stations” – hang on, you didn’t hear that, did you. You heard “BP is running out of petrol” – thus panic buying happened, and the entire country is brought to its knees. The truth was buried deep in the panic headlines and finger-pointing.
There is another tiny chipping away of confidence in society and the jobs market.
Coupled with a very lethargic slow to react government, who send mixed signals to solve problems. We are bumbling from disaster to disaster – with no clear path ahead. which creates the pre-determined paradox we are all living at the moment.
Coupled with inflation and cost of living all going up.
People are looking inward; thinking is it safe to move? Especially experienced people, in a role over 2 years. As they know if the worse came to the worse now – they’d get redundancy money, or as we are seeing and hearing, counteroffers when presenting current employers with job offers, they have got. Some employers seeing the market and how hard it is to find people are also looking inward, upping salaries, offering opportunities, giving deposit money for buying houses (this is a real counter offer experienced lately).
If we crush that into a public sphere of collective feelings…
The market is in a unique, unpredictable, delicate state. And it now comes down too, how businesses engage with this moving forward.
Can you recruit the same way before? With pitching below market conditions/salary/opportunity anymore?
Well, No. that’s the simple straight up answer. Not for this Quarter, and probably not for the next 12 months.
Question is, how will businesses need to adapt to these current conditions? And are they going to be around for a long time? The Pursuit of the right candidate for the short term – is really defined upon, salary, stability, and opportunity.
And I am not sure what the medium to long term reality is, as that is defined upon the next disaster/issue/change in society we will see.
Maybe, this is the future, and adapting our businesses to focus on more a development of staff model, with training and coaching people to where we need them to be. That’s expensive in the short term but could solve the problem in the medium to long?
Or is it, Businesses outwardly demonstrating how stable they have been over the past 2 years weathering the storms of Brexit, Covid, Petrol Crisis, and lethargic government policies. And verbalising that if you take a job with that business, you will be looked after, and have a great career with them?
I’ll let you decide that, but if you need to chat about how a recruiter like me, navigating the market – finding these elusive people can help – you can find my details on this website or below. Happy recruiting!
Who are we? Thomas Lee Recruitment specialised in the recruitment of Engineers, Manufacturing and Technical Sales across the UK, and Europe and some parts of the world. Ran by me, Mark Hopkins, with 16 years in the recruitment sector, and prior to that worked in the Engineering world in the Aircraft engineering sector.
If you want to find out more about what I can do for you, then please reach out – mark.hopkins@thomasleerecruitment.co.uk call me – 0121 661 6578