CIPD 2011 Survey of Recruitment

We reproduce here some extracts from the latest CIPD survey with our comments:

The good news is fewer organisations said they would be implementing a recruitment freeze in (22%). More(65%) expected to continue to recruit key talent/niche areas (53%). Nevertheless the outlook appeared much bleaker for the public sector, where particularly large proportions are anticipating recruitment freezes (51%) and
reducing the number of recruits they hire (68%).

The volume of applicants for vacancies has increased. Seventy-six per cent of employers have noticed an increase in the number of unsuitable applicants and 32% reported that there were too many suitable candidates to choose from. At the same time, 41% reported that competition for talent was greater as the pool of available talent to hire had fallen sharply. As in previous years, the majority of turnover is attributed to employees leaving voluntarily. The voluntary turnover rate reduced substantially in the manufacturing and production sector (2010 survey: 2.7%; 2009 survey: 7.7%).

Key human capital benchmarks(UK averages)

Labour turnover for all UK employees averaged 14%, down from 16% in 2009.
Organisations making 10 or more staff redundant 33%
Organisations experiencing recruitment difficulties 68%
Organisations experiencing retention problems 55%
Between 2009 and 2010, the proportion of organisations reporting retention difficulties decreased from 69% to 55%

The proportion of employers that expected staff levels to increase against those that expected them to decrease improved to +12 in the three months to December 2010 from –3 in the three months to December 2009. However, employers are less optimistic about the medium-term outlook. The proportion of staff that expected staff levels to increase against those that expected them to decrease is +1 in the 12 months to September 2011.

At Perfect CVs we saw the traditional surge in job seekers in Nov - Jan period but a higher proportion of those seeking work were not at the time in paid employment. There is awareness of increased competition for jobs and much greater selectivity on the part of employers. Recruitment agencies continue to reflect this, only introducing candidates with very tight fit to vacancy specifications. CIPD report a higher proportion of unsuitable applicants; in our experience it is not so much a case of unsuitability, more a case of applications and CVs underselling candidates.

Our June 2010 job survey is published on this blog and we beleive the findings then are still relevant in Feb 2011. Our next survey will be in early Summer 2011. if you wish to be included please contact me at sagitha.henderson@perfectcvs.co.uk