News and features

Tue, 8 Sep 2009

Employers 'holding on to skilled employees'

Employment expert claims that UK companies are looking to retain valuable staff members in face of economic turmoil.

Many businesses are making an effort to keep hold of their good employees, despite the growing pressure to cut jobs as a result of the economic downturn.

This is according to Tom Hadley, director of external affairs at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), who believes that employers are responding to the recession by consolidating their existing workforce.

As a result, valuable employees with well-developed skills are less likely to be made jobless as the economic uncertainty continues.

Commenting on the prospect of mass redundancies this year, Mr Hadley said: "Employers have learnt from the mistakes in the past and, apart from in retail, we're not seeing the mass culling across the board and we're not seeing employers panicking as much."

He added: "Employers are also aware that they've got to hold on to their good staff and make sure that they are motivated."

Despite these claims, the latest Report on Jobs from the REC and KPMG found that the availability of job candidates for vacancies in the UK surged during December.

Mr Hadley admitted that people currently "excluded" from the employment market - those on incapacity benefit or without adequate skills - are likely to encounter even more difficulties when looking for work at the beginning of 2009, with the market becoming increasingly saturated.

He said the growing number of people seeking jobs could make it harder for the government to pursue its current "agenda of social inclusion".

"We'll have to work harder to make sure that the current job market doesn't make it impossible for them to integrate with the employment sector," Mr Hadley explained.

• Read more about how nurturing talent amongst your employees will give you real business benefits - helping you through the current economic climate.