Recruiters’ Reality is the Labor Market’s Prophecy

Hiring for recruiters has slowed in many industries. The highly cyclical profession tells a story of the broader labor market.

News

The United Kingdom latest employment data will worry the BoE and the new government, especially the low level of worker churn.

Industries: Discover industry-specific insights and the state of hiring in these main sectors.

We have expanded our reporting to cover Canada and the UK.

recruitonomics

Recruitonomics is a hub for data-driven research that aims to make sense of our evolving world of work.

#UK

What You’ll Find: Coverage on the UK labour market, and insights on the tumultuous economy shaping it.

All #UK Stories

The United Kingdom latest employment data will worry the BoE and the new government, especially the low level of worker churn.
5 minutes
The Autumn Budget was one of the most important in decades, as the measures will materially change the U.K. macroeconomic outlook.
7 minutes
The number of skill-shortage vacancies in the U.K. has surged in recent years, particularly for blue-collar occupations that are affected by Brexit.
6 minutes
Rapid deindustrialization in the U.K. led to massive employment losses in the manufacturing sector in the 80s and 90s. Those effects can still be felt today.
5 minutes
Climate change is no longer a distant threat. It is already negatively impacting European economies and labor markets.
5 minutes
Income inequality in the U.K. has fallen. Wage stagnation at the top combined with large increases in the minimum wage can help explain why.
6 minutes
The U.K. has experienced a surge in immigration lately, so we gathered seven facts about the current state of immigration.
4 minutes
In the U.K., both wages and inflation came in hotter than expected. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate edged up and payroll jobs saw a steep decline, indicating a rapidly weakening labor market.
4 minutes
Advanced economies are facing shrinking workforces. But the recent immigration surge is now throwing off some older population forecasts.
5 minutes
The U.K.’s economic downturn is currently affecting “sitting-down jobs” much more than “standing-up jobs”. The U.K. labor market is experiencing a white-collar recession.
5 minutes
GDP data confirmed that the UK slipped into recession in the second half of 2023. The BoE needs to reverse course quickly or else face a more severe downturn.
5 minutes
Brexit may have created barriers to trading goods for the U.K., but it might also create an opportunity to become a service export superpower.
4 minutes
OECD countries have seen a surge in migration recently. In the future, expect permanently higher migration flows due to new factors at work.
5 minutes
Overall GDP growth in the U.K. has been steady, but the increase is driven by population growth, rather than productivity and income growth.
4 minutes
The United Kingdom's economic outlook is only slightly more uncertain than its current status, which is bad news for the central bank.
5 minutes
Will the proposed tax cuts from the U.K. government's actually boost economic growth or is their usefulness overstated in nominal terms?
5 minutes
Though more and more people are graduating from college, the U.K. labor market has a troubling graduate skill premium.
5 minutes
BoE officials have made it clear that they are now willing to sacrifice the labor market to bring down inflation, but the official numbers are unreliable.
5 minutes
The risks to quantitative easing are benign during anemic recoveries. In this period of high inflation, it could results in bad losses.
5 minutes
Corporate greed has been wrongly blamed for this bout of inflation. Greedflation isn't the problem. Excess growth and labor shortages are.
5 minutes
The story of the United Kingdom's economy lately has been one of disaster, but recent revisions may have changed the narrative.
4 minutes
The dysfunctional housing market in the United Kingdom prevents workers from moving to highly productive cities, leading to underperformance.
4 minutes
The UK's National Health System is stretched dangerously thin, with waiting lines so long people's lives are at risk. The lack of health services is also hurting the labor market.
5 minutes
The global manufacturing industry is being hurt by a shift in consumer preferences, especially in Europe.
5 minutes
Despite Brexit, the U.K. will remain a popular immigration destination, but the housing market will be a constraint moving forward. 
5 minutes
Higher interest rates are about to send U.K. mortgage rates soaring, aggravating the current cost-of-living crisis and the housing market.
5 minutes
The recession that was revised away: new economic projections from the BoE no longer show an upcoming downturn in the United Kingdom.
3 minutes
Unlike other advanced economies, the U.K. is experiencing particularly sticky inflation and the real possibility of a wage-price spiral.
5 minutes
The difference between the central bank and the OBR reflects diverging assumptions about employment, worker productivity, and business investment.
4 minutes
The post-pandemic labor market has been extremely tight with many vacancies left unfilled.
5 minutes
In the UK, consumer confidence and business sentiment are gradually increasing, as the economy continues to evade a massive downturn.
4 minutes
Economic growth in the United Kingdom depends on the strength of the labor force. But Brexit, demographic declines, and long-term health issues threaten that strength.
4 minutes
While soft and hard data are disconnected in other countries, the United Kingdom is doing just as poorly as workers and businesses believe.
5 minutes
The Bank of England's new economic projections show much less pessimism about the labor market and economic growth in the short term.
3 minutes
While a U.K. recession is highly likely, there is a lot of uncertainty on how deep and prolonged the economic downturn will be.
5 minutes
Even though the British economy is in a downturn, the labor market might hold up better this time than during the typical recession, especially since there is still a shortage of blue-collar jobs due to Brexit.
4 minutes
It’s been a turbulent week for the United Kingdom. Puzzling financial policy and political drama latched onto an ongoing energy crisis and a tight labour market, triggering volatility not seen in at least 20 years. 
6 minutes
Countries across the world are facing high inflation, economic fallout from a pandemic, and an energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.
3 minutes
Demand for workers is about 60% above its pre-COVID level. The paradox is that while the U.K. labour market is extremely ‘tight’ – a good thing for workers – those same workers are suffering from a cost of living crisis.
3 minutes
How does economic growth happen? It’s a hard question to answer but economists have tried for centuries. Perhaps the most famous model came from MIT economist Robert Solow in 1956. The Solow growth model specifies three factors that fuel growth: productivity, capital, and labor. 
2 minutes
Employers face stiff competition for workers amid labour shortages.
1 minute read

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