20% of IT worker positions remain unfilled due to shortages

June 11, 2012
A recent survey reports that umbrella companies and recruitment firms specialising in providing skilled technical workers to companies in need have only been able to fill four out of every five vacancies, leaving around 20 per cent of positions unfilled due to permanent worker and freelancer shortages in the media, accountancy, finance, interim management, engineering, and IT sectors.

REC webinar reveals impact of Agency Workers Regulations

June 8, 2012
A webinar hosted last month by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation in order to gauge the impact on how workers and employers were approaching Agency Workers Regulations has borne fruit, with the more than 140 participants chiming in on issues such as managing information requests and calculating holiday entitlements.

Public sector freelancer hiring rate down by 15%

June 6, 2012
While private sector firms are hiring temporary staff with highly specialised technical skills, the public sector's contractor hiring rate has slipped by nearly 15 per cent, according to a recent quarterly report from procurement firm Comensura.

Government announces £200m in funding for brightest UK businesses

June 4, 2012
Thanks to a GrowthAccelerator, new business initiative recently unveiled by Vince Cable, £200 million in funding will soon be made available for the brightest businesses in the UK - and industry experts say that contractors that work with umbrella companies are in an excellent position to benefit from the new, positive attention.

It’s going to be a long, slow recovery for the retail sector

June 1, 2012
Whilst some of us were hoping to have seen the end of the doom and gloom that has been dogging us for the last few years, it will be at least another three years before the British high street starts to recover from the recession and even then the prospects of a full recovery before the end of the decade are not looking good.

Is the government forcing contractors into umbrella companies?

May 30, 2012
After the recent revelations that a lot of Government contractors were avoiding tax by paying themselves through a personal service company, the Treasury has announced that all contractors earning more than £220 a day will have to pay the correct tax if they have been in a department for longer than 6 months.