Last month was positively brilliant for freelancers and umbrella contractors, according to one trade industry body’s most recent marketplace report.
The Recruitment and Employment Confederation seems to always have something to say about the current state of jobs demand both for the self-employed and traditional permanent employees alike. Sometimes the REC’s constant presence can be a bit disheartening – especially when the economy is abysmal – but for what it’s worth I’ll always welcome some good news from the trade organisation.
And it’s got some quite good news indeed; August’s figures are in, and int turns out that temporary worker billings, such as those for contractors, rocketed upwards at a rate that has blown every other month out of the water since July of 1998. Not only that, but this increase was across the entire UK as every single region reported increases in job billings.
This is an absolutely excellent indication that the economy may finally be coming back from near death back during the credit crunch and resultant recession, if you ask me. Sure it’s just one month of fantastic growth, but this could very easily be part of a trend that will see UK industries of all sectors humming along quite nicely soon enough.
Honestly we could use a little stability in the employment market. Yes, it’s true that freelancers and contractors have shedloads more opportunity because of the flexible nature of temporary work – on top of that, employers tend to adore contract workers because it’s a fantastic way to control payroll costs, since you only pay a freelancer whilst they’re actively working on a project – but if the economic climate is truly bad, many firms struggle to stay afloat.
Small businesses are usually hit especially hard in a bad economy, which is a shame considering SMEs are some of the best sources of jobs for interim workers. Mark my words – you can always tell when the economy has recovered sufficiently when small business owners have stopped proclaiming that the sky is falling and have instead turned their firms around to exhibit growth – usually thanks in no small part to the contributions of hard-working flexible workers!
So here’s hoping that we’re out of the woods and the fantastic performance for August repeats itself at least one or two times before the end of the year. Yes, the festive season is fast approaching and that always leads to a sizable bump in the economy, but if the UK can sustain this growth we’ll be in good shape – permanent worker and contractor alike.
