LONDON, ENGLAND, October 21, 2010
/24-7PressRelease/ -- After an encouraging first half of 2010, the number of confirmed job offers declined for the second month running in September, some recent research has found.
The study was commissioned by city pre-employment screening firm, Powerchex, which looked at confirmed employment offers made during September 2010. The findings come as the latest ONS figures showed that the number of people claiming unemployment benefits climbed to 1.47million, appearing to cement a rapidly weakening job market. The figures were worse than expected by city analysts, and seem likely to worsen as the coalition government's austerity measures cut deeper.
The Powerchex figures showed that the number of job offers made within the financial services sector decreased by a further 4% last month, after a fall of 10% in August. The decline was spread across all industry sectors except Investment Banks and Asset Management firms, up 29% and 16% respectively. Having previously taken a strong steady approach to recruitment, Insurance firms made 10% fewer job offers in September, the first time in 2010 that the number of opportunities declined.
Alexandra Kelly is a Director at Powerchex, the company which commissioned the research. She says that the recent fall in recruitment activity reflects a widespread decline in business confidence across the Financial Services Sector.
"I anticipate that the number of job opportunities within financial services will continue to decline as we move into Q4. In fact, my 'optimistic' scenario is for the number of employment opportunities to remain the same into 2011. Business confidence is plummeting because of the uncertainty caused by public sector cuts, and this is making many firms understandably nervous. In the first half of 2010 many firms hired optimistically and ahead of their revenue line, but actual revenue growth has been below forecasted levels.
"However," Kelly continues, "we need to retain some context of the situation and remember that the job market is in much better shape than 12 months ago, when conditions were really difficult. Our figures show that the number of confirmed job offers was 26% higher last month than in September 2009, and Q3 2010 saw 39% more employment offers than the same period last year."
Powerchex is a pre-employment screening organisation which specialises in catering for the needs of the finance industry. Powerchex checks the background, employment history, criminal records and professional qualifications of applicants on behalf of financial institutions and sets the industry benchmark of 5 days for a background check.
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