The private sector is now using nearly as many interims as it did before the recession, according to the Interim Management Association.

The IMA commissions a quarterly survey on interim usage in the public and private sectors and in Q2 it found that private sector bodies were responsible for 61% of interim and umbrella company contractor assignments. The strongest sector for high-end interims was banking and finance which accounted for 40% of all private assignments.

The chair of the IMA, Jason Atkinson, said the private sector buoyancy is welcome and shows that companies are using specialist resources in their bid to drive the economic recovery and enable growth. Businesses are showing an increased willingness to take on interims with bespoke skills for gap management and transitional change projects.

Spending cuts have impacted on resources in the public sector but changes have also been made in the framework agreements for interim providers. Those who did not make the grade have seen a reduction in the number of assignments they receive. On the other hand, IMA members who did pass muster are finding that the public sector side of their business is growing.

The latest JobsOutlook from the REC suggests that most employers will maintain their current level of temporary employees for at least the next three months.

61% of employers said they intend to keep the same level of temps, and 22% actually expect to increase the number of agency staff they use in the coming three months. Over the longer term, 86% of employers said they intend to either maintain to increase the amount of temps they use over the coming 12 months.

Whilst the outlook looks good for temporary workers, things aren’t so positive for those looking for a permanent position. Only 53% of employers intend to take on more permanent staff in the next three months, down from 67% last month.

Roger Tweedy, the director of research at the REC, commented on the results saying that a complex picture was now emerging about hiring intentions. The jobs market has suffered from a dip in business and consumer confidence this month. But despite the forthcoming implementation of AWR, employers are still keen to have a flexible workforce while uncertainty remains in the jobs market.

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New data suggests that the UK’s small business owners are leading the country towards economic recovery.

Figures released recently by the recruitment firm Manpower show that it is the smaller enterprises, including those that need umbrella company contractors, that are creating new job opportunities and not their larger counterparts. Manpower’s latest Employment Outlook shows an increase of 8% in the hiring intentions of small firms over the next three months.

Mark Cahill, the managing director of Manpower UK, said that despite ongoing concerns about the UK economy, the outlook for employment is at its most positive for three years.

Candidates often assume that the bigger the firm the better when it comes to job vacancies, but these figures suggest that small really is beautiful. There is still huge unmet demand for candidates to fill skills shortage roles, such as IT specialists and engineers, he continued.

Another report, this time from ECI Partners, claims that small business owners are confident about the future prospects for their company and anticipate growing in the next year.

74% of respondents to the Growth Survey expect their headcount to rise in the next 12 months and 50% said that growth will exceed 5%. In a further sign of optimism, 60% expect to see a double digit rise in turnover.

Business and enterprise minister, Mark Prisk, commented on the report saying it was good news that so many small enterprises expect to recruit and see their profits increasing. The government is committed to helping private sector businesses create jobs, and to support them we’re reducing taxation on business, tackling onerous bureaucracy and backing start-ups, he added.

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As public sector redundancies really start to bite, more women public sector workers could be tempted to go it alone and either set up their own business or become an umbrella company contractor.

Over the last ten years, the number of women working in the public sector has risen at a faster rate than it has for men, according to the TUC. As public sector job cuts increase, so female unemployment will rise, the organisation explained, and this at a time when female unemployment is at its highest level in 23 years.

Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC, pointed out that we are already starting to see the affects of public sector cuts and areas with a high concentration of public sector employment are already feeling the pain. George Osborne’s plans to create jobs are woefully inadequate and complacency over economic growth is coming back to haunt us, he added.

Despite continuing uncertainty in the sector, many public sector workers would rather stay put than transfer to the private sector, according to Badenoch & Clark recruitment consultants.

Its survey found that two thirds of workers in the public sector are sitting tight in their present role. 15% want to stay because of better benefits but around 50% said their length of service made them reluctant to leave.

The MD of Badenoch & Clark, Nicola Linkleter, said public sector employers need to support and nurture this sentiment. They should be identifying and rewarding top talent to make sure they keep hold of key employees and are in a position to attract external talent in the future.

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Graduates struggling to find a full-time job after leaving university may decide that setting up their own business is an attractive alternative.

According to research by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, graduates are waiting up to three and a half years to secure a full-time position. The HESA surveyed 49,065 people who graduated in 2007 and discovered that 28% of them were working part-time last year. 3.5% of respondents said their status was “other” which HESA interpreted as meaning unemployed.

The general secretary of the University and College Union, Sally Hunt, said it was worrying that an increasing number of graduates remain without a job. It’s now even harder to secure employment and new students coming into a system which charges the highest university fees in entire world deserve to have better prospects. Countries which invest in their graduates will be the ones that reap the rewards.

Another study, this time from totaljobs.com has found that only 9% of graduates would rather work in the public sector than in the charity or private sector.

This does seem to be surprising considering the amount of time it takes to find a job. Totaljobs.com’s graduate director, Mike Fetters, explained that the public sector was a top destination for graduates a few years ago and there are still opportunities available despite the spending cuts. He went on to say that the public sector offers career progression and good training and graduates should at least consider the wide range of opportunities available.

The survey also found that 82% of graduate jobseekers think the jobs market is now tougher than it was a couple of years ago.

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Recent research findings from Badenoch & Clark show that nearly 67% of public workers have decided to remain in their current position and 31% say they are happy in their current role. Yorkshire has the highest percentage of content employees at 44.7%.

The professional recruitment agency surveyed 1,000 public sector employees and found that almost 15% are attracted to public sector benefits such as pensions. A further 41% say their length of service makes them reluctant to leave, and this figure increased to 51% of public sector employees in the North East of England. 38.3% of public sector workers said making a difference was the prime motivator to remain in their role.

Nicola Linkleter, the MD of Badenoch & Clark, said these results show that a lot of public sector workers still have a sense of belonging despite the unprecedented changes that have affected the sector in recent months.

Employees who have been in the same role for some years are fearful of change, but the work/life balance that comes with working in the public sector and the sense of purpose they get from their employment encourages many to stay. Benefits, such as pensions, still rank highly but there are some even stronger drivers to retain staff within the sector.

It’s now up to public sector employers to support and nurture their staff throughout the period of change and acknowledge their expertise and commitment. Employers must reward top talent if they want to keep hold of their key employees and attract external talent in the future, she concluded.

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A new report from APSCo suggests that temporary workers might be in for a hard time in the next few months.

Recently, the jobs market for long-term umbrella contractors and permanent workers has been buoyant, but demand for temporary workers across a range of sectors has decreased.

In April, demand for science and technology temps dropped by 18% and HR positions decreased by 14%. Sales and retail temporary vacancies fell by 9% and short-term opportunities in banking and finance were down 8%.

The chief executive of APSCo, Ann Swain, said economists have been fretting over the fragile employment market for some time and although unemployment has not reached the 3 million figure  some had feared, there is still a great deal of uncertainty.

The jobs market has not yet felt the full impact of recent public sector redundancies and it is unsure whether the private sector recovery will be strong enough to absorb public sector job losses.

Meanwhile, the CIPD and Hays Recruitment have published the results of their “Resourcing and Talent Planning Annual Survey”.

The results show that small businesses continue to struggle to find candidates with relevant skills even though they receive numerous applications for every post. 75% of respondents reported problems over the past year, up 7 percentage points on 2010.

It would appear that small firms are increasingly turning to umbrella contractors to satisfy the talent shortage in their business. 29% of businesses said contractors were a core part of their talent planning and 62% think demand for contractors will increase.

Companies are still reluctant to take on permanent staff due to continued economic uncertainty and this has to spell good news for highly skilled temps and contractors.

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The FSB recently welcomed the news that unemployed dropped by 88,000 and that a similar number of people entered the workplace.

The vice-chairman of the Federation’s Peterborough branch, Amir Butt, said the increase in employment was good news but it is now important to continue the trend and encourage entrepreneurs to set up businesses and offer small firms incentives to increase their workforce.

Small businesses want to hire more staff and they would be willing to do so if only the government would reduce payroll costs. The coalition must put an extension of the National Insurance contributions holiday at the heart of its growth plans in order to continue reducing unemployment.

Chris Grayling, the employment minister, says more work still needs to be done. The latest figures are encouraging and its good news that employment is increasing. Compared to this time last year, there are now an additional half a million people working in the private sector, he pointed out.

He went on to say that unemployment among young people is now lower than when the coalition took up office.

The ONS data shows that public sector employment decreased by 24,000 in quarter one 2011. Local government departments shed 27,000 jobs whilst central government actually increased its workforce by 4,000. However, when you remove the temporary staff who worked on the 2011 census from the equation, public sector employment fell by 39,000 to 6.14 million.

According to the ONS report, regular salaries, excluding bonuses, have risen by 2% in the past 12 months, whilst total pay, including bonuses, rose by 1.8%.

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Umbrella company contractors north of the border could be benefiting from increased private sector business activity.

The latest Bank of Scotland purchasing managers’ index showed increases in business activity in both the manufacturing and services sectors last month. The study also revealed that Scotland witnessed the strongest increase in employment since February 2008 in May.

The chief economist at the Bank of Scotland, Donald MacRae, said May was the fifth consecutive month when the private sector economy in Scotland grew. So far this year there has been an increase in the number of new businesses, although that growth has slackened off recently showing just marginal expansion.

The rate of growth in Scotland still compares favourably to that in Northern Ireland and Wales but most English regions are now exhibiting stronger growth.

John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, said that although the news was good for employment, Scotland cannot afford to become complacent.

He pointed out that it is essential for the public sector to continue investing when private sector demand is fragile. Output in the Scottish construction industry grew by 11.2% last year, compared to 6.0% across Britain and jobs in construction rose by 13.9% compared to a decrease of 2.4% across the UK as a whole.

He says this investment has provided Scotland with a strong foundation and if additional capital funding were made available for this financial year, this could be invested in housing, renewable and transport projects which would have an immediate impact on growth.

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The latest Reed Job Index shows that UK job opportunities slipped back for the second consecutive month in May.

Despite this, the year-on-year demand is up 18 points and the Job Index now stands at 121, whilst the Salary Index has dropped to 98 after wages for new positions were found to be 2% lower in real terms than they were in the final month of 2009. The Reed Job Index was first published in December 2009 and the Index’s baseline was set at 100.

Private sector growth has fuelled the increase but the public sector did register a 9 point increase last month to give the Reed Public Sector Job Index a total of 59.

Not all sectors registered a decline. Retail, leisure and tourism led the way and demand also grew in consultancy, logistics, strategy and transport.

Reed’s chairman, James Reed, explained that more people are looking for jobs now because of salary freezes and price and tax increases. 97% of employers rank mindset above skill set and candidates must make their CV stand out.

The Services Purchasing Managers Index also dropped last month; from 54.3 in April to 53.8. This suggests that growth should still be marginally higher than it was in the six month period ending March. An Index reading above 50 indicates growth in the sector, so the latest figures show a deceleration.

The PMI for recruitment registered 50.1, suggesting marginal growth but the manufacturing PMI dropped to its lowest level since September 2009 when the UK was still in the middle of the recession.

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Umbrella company contractors may be interested to hear that although the UK government is attempting to clamp down on immigration, the numbers keep rising.

In the first quarter of this year, 666,000 people born in foreign countries were working in the UK. In the comparable quarter of 2002, there were just 298,000. Foreign born workers now fill 20% of all low-skilled jobs compared to 9% in 2002 and the majority of them come from EU countries.

The UK Border Agency now has caps on the number of highly skilled and skilled immigrants who are allowed into the UK every year but it is powerless to act against workers from EU states.

Damian Green, the immigration minister, had said the immigration cap would reduce net migration to the tens of thousands and yet Home Office statistics show net immigration increased to 242,000 in the year leading up to last September.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has said that the immigration cap has done little to reduce the number of people coming to the UK in search of work. The Institute’s public policy adviser, Gerwyn Davies, said he was not surprised at the increase in net migration. The fall in the total number of migrants from outside the EU has been overshadowed by the increase in economic migration from other EU states.

More opportunities opened up for European professionals when the government introduced its temporary cap. The UK has seen a decline of 10% in the number of US citizens employed and a drop of more than 33% in those from Australia and New Zealand.

Mr Davies went on to say that the immigration cap won’t help the UK’s unemployed people and it could have serious consequences for both public and private sector organisations.

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Hays, the international recruiter, has said that 45% of those working in the public sector are either facing redundancy or looking for alternative employment.

The recruiter’s Public Services Survey 2011 has discovered that over 80% of employers think the current lack of job security is deterring people, including umbrella company contractors looking for a new contract, looking for a job in the public sector. Slightly over 50% blame changes to benefits and 39% say scrutiny over pay is putting people off.

Furthermore, the study shows that 60% of both employers and workers think early retirement and voluntary redundancy schemes are causing an exodus of top talent.

Andy Robling, Hay’s public services director, said frontline services will more than likely be affected as large swathes of the public sector workforce depart. Demand for services such as education and healthcare are increasing and yet employers need to drive cost savings.

A lot of public sector employees now feel demotivated and undervalued and the sector needs to address this problem quickly, he concluded.

Despite the fact that many public sector employees are unhappy in their present role, a lot of them believe they will need to upskill if they are to find employment elsewhere. More than a quarter of the respondents to a recent Badenoch & Clark survey think they will need to upskill slightly and 13.4% say significant retraining will be required if they are to move to the private sector.

Although public sector budgets are being slashed, organisations are still recruiting IT specialists. In April there was a 5.98% increase in the number of public sector IT vacancies compared to the previous month.

However, to put this in context, IT spend had been at its absolute minimum for several months and now that the new financial year’s budgets have been released, critical projects are being prioritised.

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Recent research conducted by HSBC has discovered that 29% of people in the UK think their job is not secure over the next year and 37% believe the same will be true over the next three years.

Public sector workers are slightly less confident about their job security than their private sector counterparts.

The report also found that the average person would need to have savings of £1,667.25 for every month of unemployment if they were to maintain the same standard of living they enjoyed when they were employed. This figure was calculated on an average weekly gross pay of £499.

UK consulting firm Coalition has painted a gloomy picture on the short-term prospects for those working in investment banking. Revenues in the largest investment banks fell by 5% in the first quarter of this year and unless things pick up by the end of the summer, there are likely to be large scale job losses.

Despite this, the latest JobsOutlook from the REC suggests that employer confidence in the majority of sectors has picked up.

There is now a new optimism in hiring intentions for both short term and long term staff. 44% of employers plan to grow their permanent workforce within the next three months and 52% expect to hire more permanent employees within the next year. There are now only 20% of employers who are freezing recruitment, a big drop from the 43% peak late last year.

Demand for short and medium term temporary workers is also still strong as employers look to add flexibility into their workforces. 22% of companies intend to increase their usage of agency workers over the next three months but some employers have said they will gradually start to reduce their reliance on temporary workers in the next 12 months.

Director of research at the REC, Roger Tweedy, said we now have real confirmation that businesses are feeling more confident and are building up long-term strategies for planning their workforce.

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