Businesses’ employment strategies ‘show reluctance to hire new staff’

Recruitment freezes will be slow to ease, despite austerity measures leaving companies better off in recent months, according to one expert.

Andrew Hawes, director and co-founder of manufacturing consultant Newton, suggested that employment strategies implemented by firms during the economic downturn have left them with a slimline workforce and more encouraging prospects for future hiring.

“They have done things that were difficult, but in many cases what they were doing a year ago – with either redundancies or recruitment freezes – was something that was tough but necessary,” he said.

He added that as a result employers appear to be in no rush to hire new workers.

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This follows the Manpower Employment Survey, which revealed muted recruitment intentions on the part of many UK organisations for the third quarter.

Indeed, just seven per cent of bosses expect to take on more staff over the next three months and 87 per cent predicted that the numbers would remain unchanged over that period.

By Ross George