The current transitional jobs market could prove to be a godsend for umbrella company contractors.
There is still a great degree of uncertainty as far as the economic recovery goes, as the results of two new surveys shows.
The regular “Voice of Small Business” survey from the FSB shows that owners of small businesses are starting to feel more confident but despite this, most of them have no immediate plans to take on additional staff.
The latest “JobsOutlook” from the REC shows that only 23% of employers intend to increase their workforce in the coming quarter. On the plus side for contractors, 93% of employers say they maintain or increase the amount of temporary workers they use in the short term. 81% also said this would be their long term strategy.
However, that may be set to change in October when the Agency Workers Regulations are implemented.
Last week the REC held an AWR summit in London and delegates were warned that the regulations could lead to large scale reductions in the usage of temporary agency staff.
Nigel Toon, the HR director at Allied Milling, told the summit that he is responsible for anywhere between 200 and 700 temporary workers at once. If he maintained his current temporary workforce once the regulations are implemented, it would cost the company an additional £36,000 every week. He said Allied would be significantly reducing the number of agency workers it uses rather than face an extra £2m annual cost.
Kevin Green was quick to reassure delegates that 70% of agency use was with SMEs and therefore the cost implications were not the same as they were for large corporate like Allied Milling.
A straw poll was taken during the summit and 58% of attendees said they were already making plans for implementation of AWR. 34% said that had some awareness of the requirements whilst just 6% said they were totally prepared.
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Image: Single Glove by Chris Harley
