The survey of 2,000 firms by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) highlighted that around 56% are planning to recruit in the first three months of 2021.
The CIPD said it was the first positive signs for employment prospects it had seen in a year.
Across the Heads Resourcing Group including Procurement Heads, HR Heads and Executive Heads, we’ve certainly seen this trend since the start of the year, with February proving to be incredibly busy across all three brands.
The sectors proving particularly buoyant include healthcare, finance, insurance, education and Technology and we have undoubtedly seen an increase in demand for top talent across these fields.
Gerwyn Davies from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), said, “Our findings suggest that unemployment may be close to the peak and may even undershoot official forecasts, especially given the reported fall in the supply of overseas workers.”
Another positive sign from the survey was the number of firms planning to make redundancies has dropped from around 30% to 20%, compared with the previous three-month period.
Data from the Office for National Statistics show that the number of payrolled employees declined between February and November 2020, with signs it is rising slightly more recently.
The Bank of England has indicated that the UK’s fast rollout of the vaccine programme will enable the economy to bounce back strongly this year.
While the continued lockdown is expected to shrink the economy by 4.2% in the first three months of the year, a rebound is expected in spring as consumer confidence returns.
The Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, described the vaccination programme as “excellent news” which would speed up a return to normal life.
“We do think that that is going to support a sustained recovery throughout the rest of the year,” he said.
Rupert Gaster, MD of Procurement Heads, said, “This is a welcome respite from the volatile nature of the market in 2020. We are all looking forward to stronger trading in 2021.”
