Key industry sectors see boost in vacancies, but employers still remain cautious

Key growth areas such as accountancy and banking, finance and insurance saw an uplift in the creation of new job vacancies in May, according to Adecco and the latest data from mysalarychecker.com*. However, while there were over 110,000 advertised vacancies recorded across the board last month, this is down marginally on April (111,015 vacancies) and reflects a continued caution among employers.

Despite reporting a monthly fall in new vacancies last month, the engineering and construction sector continues to represent the highest proportion of new roles being created. However, outside of the public sector, this sector also reported some of the highest month on month falls in new vacancies across both permanent and temporary roles in May.

Steven Kirkpatrick, Managing Director, Adecco – the UK’s largest recruiter, said:

“The latest data on new job vacancies is good news for those seeking employment, with sectors such as accountancy, banking, insurance and finance fuelling the creation of new roles in both the temporary and the permanent jobs market. However, despite these positive signs, coupled with recent reports that unemployment levels have again fallen, employers remain cautious. Some sectors, such as engineering and construction are seeing monthly falls in the number of new jobs being created, suggesting this sector may have already peaked in terms of new job creation.

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Kirkpatrick, added: “Permanent roles across general staffing are performing well, with new vacancies growing month on month across the majority of sectors. However, despite a relative slow in the creation of new, temporary roles, this is expected to pick up over the summer. With the holiday season on its way, we would expect to see the number of new, temporary roles, particularly in the tourism industry, notably increase over the coming months.”