The proportion of employers expecting to hire additional staff this summer is unchanged from the spring, according to the quarterly CIPD/KPMG Labour Market Outlook (LMO) survey.

The survey found that net recruitment intentions are the weakest in any summer quarter since the LMO survey began and the balance of employers who expect to be employing more staff in a year’s time over those expecting to employ fewer has fallen from 22% to 19% since the spring.

The CIPD’s chief economist, Dr John Philpott, says: “With recruitment intentions weaker than in the past few summers, and the effects of recent interest hikes still to be fully felt, job prospects look set to soften, though judging by the experience of the past decade the chances are that most employers will respond to slower demand by cutting back on recruitment rather than increasing redundancies.”   

The survey found that 86% of employers intend to recruit staff this summer, 38% intend to recruit additional staff this quarter and 49% of employers anticipate recruitment difficulties this quarter.

The proportion of employers intending to make some staff redundant has fallen from 25% to 20% since the spring survey.
It found that 23% of employers plan to conduct a pay review in the summer quarter and 39% expect the pay of their staff to increase on average by 3–3.5%.