Over the last month we have been monitoring the situation for IT contractors, particularly following the recent spending review. The REC have published a ‘Report on Jobs’ for October, which has shown that demand for both permanent and temporary positions has reduced to the lowest rate for over a year, with IT looking to have fallen the most.
Kevin Green, REC’s Chief Executive, commented on the findings saying, “The UK jobs market is still growing. However, the rate of growth was the weakest for 14 months and vacancies remained on a downward trend, rising at the slowest pace for 12 months. This confirms that the private sector’s ability to compensate for planned job losses in the public sector hangs very much in the balance.”
He said that the private sector should be able to cover the public sector losses, but insists that the government must give them some support. “[The] Government needs to do more to reduce taxation on business, remove unnecessary employment legislation and most importantly, incentivise private sector businesses to take on the one million young people not currently in work, education or training.”
There had been some suggestions from a number of industries that contractors should revert back to permanent positions. Alexandra Kelly, MD of pre-employment screening company Powerchex, said, “If you are an IT contractor on current assignment, it would be worthwhile exploring the possibility of going permanent. With 4,500 Lloyds IT contractors about to be made redundant there is going to be a glut of contractors in the marketplace, and opportunities, permanent or temporary, are going to be harder to come by.”
However, with both temporary and permanent positions facing reductions there is little reason to back this view. Optimism remains though, as one IT specialist, Alan Banks of Adobe Systems, still believes that demand will increase; speaking following the spending review last month he said, “The government’s future proposals are also likely to include plans for extending the reach of ICT in order to absorb the disruption caused by the cancellation of other front-line public sector initiatives.”
We will continue to look at the issues for IT contractors, so continue to follow our blog here.
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