The report’s findings, released today, reveals perm placements increased at the quickest pace since August at the end of the year, as agencies reported strong demand for staff, while the growth of temp billings remained sharp, despite softening since November.
 
While staff vacancies grew at the slowest rate for a year in December, demand for staff remained sharp overall and above the average seen in survey history.
 
Staff availability for both perm and temporary roles fell away over the month, with availability of candidates to fulfil permanent roles declining sharply at the end of last year. The rate of deterioration was among the fastest seen for two years. Temporary labour supply also declined at an historically marked pace in December, despite the rate of reduction slowing since November.

Across the regions, the Midlands continued to signal the fastest increase in permanent placements at the end of the year, while the least marked rate of growth was seen in London.
 
London posted the fastest increase in temp billings of all five monitored UK regions in December, though rates of expansion were also sharp in other parts of the country.

Turning to individual sectors, December’s data pointed to rising demand for both private and public sector staff.

Though the steepest increase in vacancies was seen for permanent workers in the private sector, closely followed by demand for temporary workers in the sector. Relatively modest rates of growth were witnessed for both permanent and temporary vacancies across the public sector.

The accounting/financial sector led broad-based increased demand for permanent workers in December, closely followed by IT & computing and engineering, with slowest growth signalled for construction and hotel & catering workers.
 
This month’s data also signalled a further rise in vacancies for temporary staff across all nine monitored categories, led by nursing/medical/care, followed by blue collar and accounting/financial.

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