Once again, demand for freelancers and umbrella company contractors grew last month, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.
Seems like that big, scary talent shortage is once more leading to a beneficial knock-on effect for British contract workers, as the REC found that for the month of October billings for temporary staff increased yet again. In all honesty it might not have been as outstanding as September’s record growth, but it was still high enough to turn heads and put smiles on the faces of freelancers looking for new clients.
For what it’s worth, this trend will likely continue in the short term as the number of well-trained permanent workers continues to dwindle. There’s simply not enough of these traditional employees to go around to support the economic recovery efforts that are being spearheaded by the nation’s smaller businesses, so naturally these SMEs turn to contractors to fill these glaring gaps. For the long run, though? Eventually things will get so dire that I don’t really think even the UK’s healthy population of interim workers are going to provide enough support for companies – and that’s going to lead to firms having to make the unenviable decision to either stall their growth or outsource billings overseas. Both choices would be pretty bad for the UK economy as a whole, but what can you do?
Enough of that doom and gloom, though – right now we should be celebrating the good fortune of freelance workers and how they’re capitalising on what would otherwise be a rather dire situation. Still, it’s important to keep the longer-term in mind so we don’t let it creep up on us unawares, hit us on the head with a half brick, and go rummaging through our pockets.
Let’s hope that things change in the future so that we don’t have to worry about this dark cloud that’s looming on the horizon. How do we solve the problem? Well damned if I know, but it’s going to take a lot more than just relying on the nation’s freelancers to get us through the dark times indefinitely. A renewed focus on training efforts for younger Brits would do it, but we need someone to champion this idea to get it of the ground. Should we look to the Government to solve our problems? Well I don’t know – they kind of been letting the side down for the last few decades, if you ask me!
