According to an interim management recruitment specialist, the winners in the credit crunch are likely to be temporary staff, contractors and interims as companies try to avoid adding permanent employees to the payroll.

In a recent survey of specialist agencies conducted by Phil Young and his consultancy Johnson-Young Associates, many were seeing certain sectors slow down on recruiting whilst other sectors still remained buoyant. However because of the amount of people seeking work, Young suggests that it is becoming increasingly harder to filter out the good applicants for the positions on their books.

Young also suggests that head-hunters are finding this a hard time primarily because the people they call are very reluctant to leave what they perceive to be stable positions, and as a result, Interims are once again benefiting by backfilling those roles that are being recruited for.

"What we tend to see at times of recession are companies flexing down the workforce to save money but they often flex too far and this then means that they do not have the resource to move the business forward, this is when the market for Interims picks up, once the companies have bottomed out and realise they need people", suggests Young, a former leading UK CIO with over 25 business experience.

"It doesn't help that we are also now in 'holiday silly season', at this time of year a lot of decision makers are either away from the office or are demob happy and therefore are holding off on recruitment decisions. But in general, after a short lull, this could be a very good time for Interims" adds Young.