Quarterly market update from Balance Recruitment

Despite being a successful year of growth for the business, Balance Recruitment’s final quarterly market update of 2011, notes a marked difference between the first and second half of the year, with the UK jobs market slowing as the year progressed.

Richard Hooper, Director and Principal Consultant at Balance Recruitment commented:

“Looking back, 2011 was a successful year of growth for Balance Recruitment, although this is more a reflection on the growth of our client base rather than the state of the jobs market. The year had got off to a promising start across the UK jobs market, with steady growth continuing through from 2010 right up to the half year point, when a number of factors contributed to cause a decrease in employer confidence which made for a challenging end to the year for the recruitment market.” 

However, despite the permanent jobs market remaining sluggish throughout Q4, the business noted a continued increase in the availability of fixed term contract assignments within the Legal Accounts sector. 

“We had referenced this trend in our Q3 update and this only strengthened as the year went on, with an increasing number of employers wishing to consider candidates on ‘contract to permanent’ basis rather than committing to permanent headcount straight away. This of course has a significant impact on the level of interest generated by such assignments, ruling out the vast majority of permanently employed jobseekers who would only move for another permanent position. Fixed term contracts do offer employers flexibility, but can involve a compromise on experience.”

Looking ahead to 2012, it would take a brave person to commit to writing their predictions on exactly how the Legal Accounts jobs market and wider UK recruitment market will go, but Hooper is anticipating a return to growth, and having already experienced a very busy start to Q1, remains optimistic about the year ahead.