You’re in luck if you’re a freelancer or umbrella contractor looking for work right now: a new survey found that temporary billings are on the rise.
The latest jobs report from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation found that September was another banner month when it came to both temporary and permanent job placements. In fact not only did permanent billings almost match July’s record-breaking month, but interim vacancies were almost on par with August’s 15 year high water mark.
For what it’s worth, this is obvious proof that the economy is finally beginning to turn itself around and that employers are beginning to regain some much-needed confidence in themselves and the overall financial landscape both here in the UK and abroad. How can you tell? Well the fact that permanent roles are increasing as well is a brilliant indication of this, since most savvy employers won’t take on additional traditional staff due to the strain it places on payroll; instead they rely on freelancers, umbrella company workers, and other self-employed individuals on a per-project basis to control payroll costs.
But this simply isn’t the case, now is it? No, permanent placements are going up nearly as much as temporary ones, and that means employers out there are becoming less afraid to take the risk on increasing their payroll outgoings. Of course there will always be a need of skilled and qualified freelancers, especially in sectors that are being hit hard by the talent shortage at the moment; experienced contractors in many subsectors are unbelievably busy right now as a result, and that may be accounting for much of the job placement activity going on over the past few months.
Luckily, pay rates have begun to creep up as well, and if you ask me that’s just more data to corroborate the hypothesis that the economy is getting better and that business owners have renewed confidence. Nobody’s going to offer higher pay rates unless they can afford to do so, so with the REC data revealing that people are getting paid better than they have in past months it’s fairly obvious to anyone that things are better – or better enough, at least, to warrant heightened risk-taking on the part of employers!
Now if only the Americans could sort out their debt ceiling worries by the end of the week and not default on their debts, we could rest assured that nothing will get the way of economic recovery!
