A report from the CEBR and Totaljobs.com has claimed that by 2015 – 16 the public sector needs to fill 2.1 million job vacancies.
This could ease fears of some umbrella company contractors who fear that work in the public sector could dry up.
The report also says that the public sector could save £2.5bn if it changed its employment practices in the next five years. The public sector could achieve this by implementing the following policy recommendations, according to the report’s co-authors.
They suggest that internal vacancies should become the exception rather than the rule and that the public sector should post the maximum number of vacancies online so that organisations have access to a wider pool of talent. In order to attract high calibre candidates, all roles should be advertised on the website job boards of public sector organisations and these job boards must be made accessible to everybody. Finally, HR personnel in the public sector must be trained in using online channels to their best advantage.
The CEBR’s managing economist, Richard Greenwood, pointed out that even though the public sector headcount is set to shrink because of the government austerity measures, the sector will need to continue recruitment activity due to natural churn.
However, it is now even more important for the public sector to be cost efficient and by saving £2.5 billion through online recruiting, public sector bodies can increase productivity as well as doing more for less.
Totaljobs.com’s director, John Salt, said that the results of their research show that the future for public sector employment is not as bad as was first thought. But changes do need to be made and one way to achieve this is by being more transparent when it comes to recruitment and taking advantage of the cost saving benefits of recruiting online.
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