W&A 2012 preview

With the Eurozone and Sovereign debt crises on-going amidst continued economic woes in the wider financial markets, many people and businesses are approaching 2012 with a sense of trepidation. Here at Wilkinson & Associates we're doing our best to buck the trend and put a more positive spin on the prospects for the coming year. There is no doubt that 2012 will bring both familiar and new challenges but we believe the secret to overcoming those challenges is to face them head on and not to overplay their severity.

2011 proved to be a very successful year despite extremely challenging market conditions. Over the course of 2011 a relatively slow permanent market was generally offset by the continuing positive trends within the interim market. However, this should be caveated by the fact that demand in certain sub-sectors of the market, namely newly/recently qualified accountants, showed some signs of significant improvement towards the end of the year. As we move into 2012 we are hopeful that these more positive signs will become the norm.

The December 2011 REC/KPMG Jobs Market report (published 11^th Jan 2012) made for some depressing reading, the key points of which were as follows;

1. Modest decline in permanent staff appointments
2. Temp billings decrease for first time since July 2009
3. Permanent salaries broadly flat; temp pay down slightly
4. Growth of candidate availability accelerates

However, as the famous quote states, there are 3 kinds of lies; "lies, damned lies and statistics" ..... As such, we would like to address each of the above apparently depressing statistics individually;

1. A modest decline in permanent appointments in the month of December actually represents a reasonable performance.
2. This is a timing issue. Many of the major Programmes/Projects which have been on-going over the past 2 years have been delivered successfully in Q4 of 2011 thus resulting in only a temporary slow-down in temp billings. We are confident this will not be a trend which continues into 2012 as new projects are launched (many of which were temporarily shelved in 2011) and new budgets are released.
3. As a result of continued focus on controlling costs, many employers have frozen salaries and temp rates. Basic economic principles suggest this cannot be sustained in the long term and therefore we expect salaries to rise (even if only slightly) in 2012.
4. For companies looking to hire in 2012 (and there are a few), this can only be good news in terms of the choice of candidates available to them.

We would argue that, as in the case of consumer confidence in the retail markets, a negative approach to the Scottish recruitment market can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is important to remember that amidst all the doom and gloom there are numerous Scottish-based businesses which continue to perform well in challenging conditions and in doing so are producing innovative recruitment strategies designed to maximise the opportunities that the current market dynamic has created. Job seekers who are willing to embrace the challenge of adapting to ever-changing market dynamics will not be out of work for long.

We believe our favourite philosopher sums up the situation rather well "To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities." Bruce Lee

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