Recruitment on rise

A growing number of companies are looking to increase headcount in order to capitalise on improving market conditions.

The bi-annual Business Tracker survey by serviced offices provider Regus found that a third of respondents from the UK are seeking to recruit more staff.

Regus chief executive Mark Dixon says: ‘The intention to increase headcount is a clear indicator that businesses want to be prepared to grasp the opportunities that recovering markets may throw their way.’

The Regus survey, which interviewed over 10,000 senior business professionals across 78 countries, found that businesses generally in the UK were more positive than they were six months ago.
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On a global scale, 36 per cent of companies are also expecting to expand their workforce, while 41 per cent are still looking to reduce overheads, although not through reducing staff numbers.

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UK recovery on a knife-edge

SMEs are hunkering down as concerns increase about the robustness of the economic recovery.

According to a study of 1,304 members of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the net balance of businesses expecting an improvement in prospects over the next three months has dropped from 16.2 per cent at the end of the first quarter, to 4.2 per cent in quarter two and now just 0.5 per cent at the end of quarter three.

More than a third (38.1 per cent) of respondents also report a decline in revenues in the three months to September and 10.4 per cent of companies actively expect to decrease employment over the next three months.

John Walker, national chairman of the FSB, says: ‘Evidence from this report shows that small firms do not have the confidence to [create jobs] yet and so we urge the Government to ensure that the right measures for firms to grow are laid out.’

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