UK firms remain wary despite elevated recruitment figures
April 23, 2010 by Damian
The title of this post is the title of an article from the latest edition of the UK’s The Lawyer magazine which you can read here – http://www.thelawyer.com/1004112.article.
The tenor of this article sums up for me exactly the uncertainty in the recruitment market at present and the influence that the press has on people’s perception of the state of that market.
What I mean by this is that the first sentence of this article states:
“The UK’s top 25 firms are back in recruitment mode, with an estimated 2,133 people having been brought on board to UK offices in 2009-10 alone.”
I am sure that everyone reading this would think – ‘brilliant – now it’s time to dust off the CV because I’m outta here’.
Well ‘no’ I’m afraid. The next sentence states:
‘However, the total number of hires is still exceeded by the 2,370 people firms made redundant during the downturn, suggesting management caution has far from subsided.”
The article goes on to state that :
‘The highest numbers of hires were made by two firms with large volume businesses, Irwin Mitchell and Eversheds, which recruited 414 and 293 people respectively’. This sounds positive for your chances at Irwin Mitchell and Eversheds – yes? Well ‘no’, the next sentence states:
“Since late 2007 Irwin Mitchell has laid off 16, while Eversheds parted company with 735.’
So the question remains – are firms back in recruitment mode or not?
This article does not answer the question and shies away from coming to a conclusion, finishing off instead with a very bland non sequitur from the Chief Executive of DLA Piper, (incidentally a firm who made more redundancies than most). So what was the point of the article? To be honest, I am not sure as it seems to give hope to people but then tempers it with caveat upon caveat.
What this article highlights to me is that no-one knows what will happen in the coming months, not even the esteemed journos at The Lawyer. The market is still going through a lot of uncertainty and how long it will take for this uncertainty to be removed, is anyone’s guess.
As for whether I, sitting down here in NZ, am going to come to a conclusion as to the state of the recruitment market in London, well if the journos at The Lawyer aren’t going to, then neither will I!
However, if you are thinking about making the move to London or elsewhere, please get in touch with us. We would love to have a chat to you about your background and what we can do to help you over there.
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