Businesses are expanding their workforces at a record pace to cope with a wave of demand after the easing of lockdown, a survey suggests.

In its latest report, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation said that permanent job placements had risen in May at the fastest rate since it began collecting data in 1998 — and that the pool of available workers to draw on was shrinking.

The data from the confederation and KPMG, the Big Four accounting group, is based on a survey of about 400 recruitment consultancies in the second half of the month.

It also found that the supply of workers had fallen at the quickest rate since May 2017, which puts pressure on pay rates. Starting salaries for permanent staff rose to the greatest extent since September 2018, while temporary wage inflation hit a near-two-year high.

Kate Shoesmith, deputy chief executive of the REC, said: “Confidence is growing, hiring plans are in motion. With demand spiking, pre-existing skills and labour shortages have come into sharper focus and Covid has only made them worse. This has the potential to slow down the recovery.”

Original source: The Times, 4th June 2021