In the three months to April, the total fell 88,000 to 2.43 million, the largest quarterly fall in unemployment for more than ten years, according to the Office for National Statistics - however recruitment agencies can be optimistic about the the future.
Commenting on the figures, Kevin Green, The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) Chief Executive, said: “While the May Report on jobs marked a slowing in the rate of growth, recruitment professionals continue to report that hiring activity is still strong in many sectors of the jobs market. Coupled with that, employer confidence is at a 12 month high as is consumer confidence so the jobs market outlook in the next few months is looking more positive than expected considering the UK’s anemic economic growth.”
The news comes only days before The Trades Union Congress’ (TUC) study showed that it will take an average of five and a half years for the UK to return to an employment rate of 73 percent – the level seen in February 2008.
The report also suggested that the labour market in particular is still in a very fragile state and although 416,000 new jobs were created in the last year, this is not enough to continue to increase the level of employment in the UK.
However, with the REC’s positive outlook is increasing confidence at recruitment agencies throughout the UK, funding is still a problem and the REC has warned that cash flow is a crucial issue for recruitment agencies.
Recruitment agencies often have to pay workers before they receive payment from the end clients and large parts of the UK economy rely on the flexibility that agency workers provide and the top five UK banks missed their first-quarter target for lending to SMEs by £2 billion.
In over ten years, Skipton Business Finance has funded a range of different recruitment companies with invoice finance, including flexible invoice factoring and invoice discounting solutions, meaning that the agency can have immediate access to funds as and when an invoice is raised.
The factoring and invoice discounting facilities also mean that the recruitment agency can also grow in line with their sales meaning that the solutions we provide are more flexible than a traditional bank overdraft.
If you're a recruitment company and would like more information on how we can help fund your business, please call us now on 0845 602 9354 or use our online enquiry form to receive a quote.