UK recruiters need to look for opportunities in a challenging economic environment as the economy eases through “a fairly slow, protracted recovery,” a senior Barclays Corporate economics expert told an audience of recruiters Thursday morning.

“It’s going to be a challenging outlook, albeit more positive than 12 months ago,” the expert said at the launch of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s Recruitment Industry Trends Survey 2009/10.

Potential opportunities for recruiters include a high level of ‘involuntary’ temporary or part-time employment as well as greater candidate availability and churn, the expert said.

The recently unveiled Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) may ‘unfreeze’ some public jobs and also create churn, the expert went on to say. He also said that outsourcing may increase private sector recruitment and that recruiters will likely be involved in providing transition services for public sector workers facing redundancy.

Other opportunities for recruiters include expansion into higher value-add services such as advanced selection and growth in emerging markets, he pointed out.

At the launch, REC chief executive Kevin Green said it was believed that there had been “huge churn” at the bottom end of the recruitment industry, with many firms going out of business. “We think it went down under 10,000,” he said of the number of recruitment companies operating. “We think 10% went out of business, but it is starting to grow again.”