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.
Comensura’s most recent government hiring index found that the number of contractors and freelancers working in IT for state bodies such as local authorities declined by 14.5 per cent during 2012’s first quarter. There was an even stronger contraction amongst other technical roles, such as engineers, with freelancer positions shrinking by 22 per cent, the index discovered.
However, there was one bright spot: construction freelancing positions were up by 28 per cent in comparison to 2011’s first quarter. Hourly pay rates were found to have increased by 9.8 per cent as well, due to the effect of Agency Workers Regulations.
However, both male and female candidates were suffering from a reduced number of freelance or contract positions. However, women did manage to scratch out some growth in comparison to last year, where only 44.9 per cent of temporary workers were female; last quarter saw 45.3 per cent of contractors as women, something that was attributed to the number of administrative workers, as cuts in that particular sector were smaller than expected; around seven out of every ten temporary admin workers are women, according to official statistics.
Worst off were younger workers, Comensura found, with year-on-year reductions of 26 per cent for the number of public sector temporary roles held by those between the ages of 25 and 34.
