The June numbers landed and for once we're not bracing ourselves.
Special report by Paul Sharpe, Recruitment Business Advisor, NorthStar People
📉 Permanent placements - still falling (45 straight months, let that sink in), but the slowest decline since March. London, the South and Midlands all eased off too. The North dipped back into decline after four months of growth. Not a recovery. A slower bleed. I'll take it.
📈 Temp billings - growth accelerated to the fastest pace in over three years. Every English region grew, South leading. If you still haven't built out your contract desk, the data's telling you something.
📉 Vacancies - total UK vacancies down to 707,000, the lowest outside the pandemic since November 2014. Permanent vacancies had their steepest drop in five months. The gap between what clients say they need and what they'll actually fund keeps widening.
👥 Candidates - still flooding in, 40 months of rising availability now (just slightly slower). More competition means you earn your fee on service, not supply.
💰 Pay - permanent salaries rose at their fastest rate since January, temp pay near a 12-month high. Employers are still paying for the good ones. Worth remembering next time a client claims there's no budget.
🎯 Sectors - Nursing/Medical/Care and Engineering the only ones growing on perm vacancies. Retail's had the sharpest fall. On temp, Blue Collar and Engineering are up.
Bottom line: confidence is soft, but hiring hasn't collapsed with it. Perm and temp demand both still positive, job postings up 8% year on year. This market is cautious, not stopped.
Same message as ever: the agencies leaning into flexible workforce solutions are the ones riding this wave. The ones waiting for perm to snap back are waiting for a train even Avanti haven't delayed yet.
