Salaries flatline desipte more vacancies

Although the number of job vacancies rebounded last month, particularly in the professional services and engineering sectors, salaries have remained flat.
 

Employment web site Reed.co.uk said that its Job Index stood at 125 in June, which is four points or 3% higher than May, indicating that the number of available posts has returned to April’s levels. It is also 22 points higher than June last year and 25% above December 2009 levels, when the Index’s 100 baseline was set.
 
But the Reed Salary Index stood at 98, indicating that the salaries offered for new jobs have remained flat. In fact, they are 20% lower than in December 2009 for the second month running.
 
Martin Warnes, reed.co.uk’s managing director, said: “Demand for skilled, highly qualified staff has fuelled this month’s increase. Key job sectors such as insurance and engineering reached the highest levels we have experienced since the Index began 18 months ago.”
 
Despite “residual concerns” over the state of the economy, opportunities for jobseekers were growing again as employers began hiring in order to support future growth, he added.
 
Demand for engineering staff (at 181) manufacturing personnel (155), general insurance workers (148) pre-qualified accountants (136) and fully-qualified accountants (130) was particularly strong.
 
Regionally, the East Midlands and East Anglia saw the biggest growth in vacancies, although demand in London and the South East also recovered after a dip in May, which boosted the Index as a whole.
 
A second survey undertaken by employers’ lobby group the CBI and PricewaterhouseCoopers, meanwhile, indicated that last quarter, financial services firms hired at the fastest rate since September 2007 and the start of the credit crunch.
 
Some 11,000 extra jobs were created in the second quarter, taking the sector’s total workforce to 1.08 million, with another 10,000 workers expected to be taken on over the next three months – despite Lloyds decision to axe 15,000 posts. Employment in the industry is normally around the one million mark, but fell at the start of this year following highs of about 1.1 million in 2008.