It’s time to celebrate: September’s figures are in, and contractors saw their billings and their pay rates increase over last month.
It’s true; The Recruitment and Employment Confederation’s latest jobs report, published just the other day this week, revealed that last month was a particularly strong one. I love it when I get to talk about good news for a change, and this definitely qualifies, especially when we’re talking about the positive change in the livelihood of so many freelancers and umbrella contractors working in the UK right now.
According to the REC, interim worker billings rose by an amazing rate in September. Sure it might not have kept up with August’s record rates, but August saw a 15-year high so let’s not get too greedy shall we? Besides, September’s growth in billings was only a hair’s breadth under that rarefied figure.
Even better was the fact that pay rates were up across the board for September as well. Granted pay rate increases were relatively modest, but an increase is an increase as far as I’m concerned. It might not keep up with the constantly increasing cost of living, but it’s better than not experiencing any pay rate hike at all, isn’t it?
Of course there’s a black cloud to this silver lining, and that’s in the realm of lowered active candidacies from both the permanent and interim work fields. This is of course a function of the dreaded skills shortage, or at least that what it looks like to me; it’s a combination of too many billings and not enough workers to go around. On top of that, many employers are clinging to their skilled, qualified contractors like a bit of wood cast adrift in a stormy sea, enticing them to stay on with longer projects and better pay in order to remain competitive and productive.
If you’re lucky enough to have a steady client like that, good on you. If you don’t, worry not – there’s plenty of jobs out there for you to snap up – at least for now. Eventually the demand for workers will collapse under its own weight and this could lead to another economic slowdown unless something is done to increase the number of skilled workers out there; let’s hope the Government has something up their sleeve in this instance!
