At Simply Jobs Boards we have started to see an increase of vacancies placed on some of our job boards, particularly Simply Sales Jobs & Simply HR Jobs, which bodes well for the future. This evidence was backed up by the REC (Recruitment and Employment Confederation) this week:

The jobs market is beginning to show signs of improvement as the number of people gaining employment has declined at the slowest rate for more than a year.

The Report on Jobs by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG showed that the index reading for the number of people placed in permanent positions in June was 48.6 – on a scale where 50 indicates no change – which was the slowest rate of decline in 13 months. In May, this figure was 41.7.

The number of vacancies available in June also declined at a slower rate with an index reading of 39.2 – compared with 34.4 during the previous month.

Meanwhile the sharp increase in the number of people looking for work has slowed. The rise in availability of permanent staff rose to an index reading of 74 – compared with 75.1 in May – which was the smallest rise in nine months. The rise in temporary and contract staff was indicated by an index reading of 76.7.

The rate of decline in the amount new permanent employees were being paid continued to decrease, but this decline was the slowest since December 2008, with an index reading of 41.8.

Kevin Green, chief executive of the REC, said while the results were positive, he was concerned the public sector would stop recruiting to cut costs, which could prevent the jobs market from recovering fully.

“The UK jobs market shows signs of life,” he said. “While the public sector has continued to recruit, it is now critical that demand returns to the private sector to negate the potential public expenditure constraints that we are likely to see over the next few years, which could in turn hinder a full recovery of the UK jobs market.”

But Mike Stevens, partner and head of business services at KPMG, warned it was still too early to talk of a recovery in the jobs market. He said the continued improvements could be attributed to employers’ attempts to seek alternatives to redundancies.

He said: “One reason why we see continued improvements may be that more UK employers are asking staff to work reduced hours for lower pay in return for less aggressive redundancy plans. This approach may have played a part in moderating the impact on employment during the current recession.”

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The news that BT is offering tens of thousands of employees the chance to take long-term holidays in return for pay cuts is evidence that UK employers are taking a novel approach to the recession in a bid to avoid further job cuts.

British Telecom is offering workers the chance to take a year off if they accept a small proportion of their salary as an upfront payment.

It is part of a raft of measures being introduced by BT to cut costs until the economy improves without having to resort to more redundancies.

The former state telecom company, which employs more the 100,000 people, posted £1.3billion losses for the first quarter of this year.

Other options available to staff include a one-off payment of £1000 for going part-time and giving the parents the opportunity to work around their childrens’ school holidays.

BT cut 15,000 jobs this year, mostly in the UK, and claims these ‘extremely progressive’ measures are necessary to save further losses.

A spokesman said: “BT is known for it’s progressive human resources policies with flexible working.

“Being one of the largest employers in the UK, I think this is an extremely progressive way of managing costs during recessions, rather than making redundancies.”

Last month British Airways, which has posted annual losses of £401 million, asked their staff to work without pay to help the company.

The appeal, sent by e-mail to more than 30,000 workers in the UK, asked them to volunteer for between one week and one month’s unpaid leave, or unpaid work. Around 800 have so far agreed.

Stuart Fowler, of Aviation Job Search.com, said: ”The decision to ask their staff to work without pay was a risky but innovative move by BA which has since been followed by other firms, such as BT, who are keen to hold on to their valued workforce whatever it takes during the economic downturn.

”Although the aviation industry has been badly affected, job seekers shouldn’t be too downhearted. We currently have around 1,500 travel and aviation job vacancies available through out sites and many carriers and travel firms are continuing to recruit.”

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