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Permanent and contractor jobs market declines easing

Published on Jul 9, 2009 | | Contract Rate Checker

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The June 2009 REC/KPMG 'Report on Jobs' suggests that, although UK job market conditions continued to worsen last month, the pace of decline has slowed rapidly - suggesting that we may finally have hit the bottom of the slump.

For permanent roles, the report showed that the decline in placements was less severe than any time over the past 13 months. The number of permanent jobs advertised also fell at its weakest rate in 9 months.

Unsurprisingly, given the state of the economy, permanent salaries continued to fall in June - although, as with all other indicators, the pace of decline was far less marked than in previous months.

According to the report, contract staff billings declined at the slowest rate since September 2008, and the overall drop in contract openings was the lowest in 8 months.

Again, reflecting general economic conditions, contract rates continued to fall slightly in June (as they did in May).

For both permanent and contract roles, recruitment agencies reported another month of rising candidate availability - although the rate of increase has slowed significantly.

According to the Jobstats site, the total demand for IT staff has reached levels similar to those last seen in the 2002-3 slump. However, after a rapid decline in demand, the latest graph would also appear to show that the bottom of the jobs market decline may indeed have been reached. Let's hope so!