Recruitment fell sharply in April, suggesting that employers are holding again on hiring as enterprise confidence continues to be impacted by financial uncertainty.

That’s in keeping with the newest statistics from the Affiliation of Skilled Staffing Firms (APSCo) – the commerce physique for the skilled recruitment sector.

The information – offered by the worldwide chief in software program for the staffing business, Bullhorn – revealed that everlasting and contract vacancies fell 16% and 13% respectively between March and April. The annual comparability additionally reveals a decline in recruitment. Jobs fell 24% for everlasting roles and 21% for contract positions between April 2022 and 2023.

Placements fall as companies fail to recruit

In keeping with the statistics, the variety of placements additionally fell in April, down 25% for everlasting and contract positions between March and April 2023. Whereas that is indicative of a slowdown in hiring over the Easter holidays, the annual comparisons level to a contraction that’s being pushed by an absence of enterprise confidence. Everlasting placements have been down nearly a 3rd between April 2022 and the identical interval in 2023, whereas contract additionally fell 27%.

The information does, nonetheless, point out a month-to-month uptick in common everlasting salaries which, though solely small at 2%, does counsel that remuneration is creeping up as a mix of the cost-of-living disaster and shortages of extremely expert professionals prevails throughout the UK.

Ann Swain, World CEO of APSCo feedback: “The newest figures do current a degree of concern for the UK. The recruitment market typically serves as a bellwether for the broader financial local weather, making this sharp annual fall in jobs and placements a problem that every one enterprise leaders and authorities authorities ought to pay attention to. The information means that we’ve shifted from an absence of candidates to a pointy drop in necessities as enterprise confidence falls amid financial uncertainty. Whereas stories from the OBR counsel that we’ve narrowly prevented a recession to date, we might be heading in a unique course until confidence within the financial system is strengthened, and that must be underpinned by a powerful labour market.”