The Reed Recruitment Index report

The Reed Recruitment Index is produced quarterly by Reed, the UKís leading recruitment specialist.
Over 1,400 organisations across the UK were asked about their recruitment plans for the next quarter.

37 per cent of firms in the UK plan to increase staffing levels in the first quarter of 2003, a five percentage point increase on the first quarter of 2002. The Reed Recruitment Index shows signs of cautious encouragement in the job market: the total percentage of organisations planning to recruit in the coming quarter is 89 per cent (up five points on last year) and those planning to make
redundancies has fallen from 10 per cent at the start of last year to eight per cent in the first quarter of
2003.

Regional Variations
The largest expansion plans for the coming quarter are in Northern Ireland (57 per cent of organisations recruiting to grow) and the North East (54 per cent). Wales demonstrates the largest increase (of 20 percentage points) over 2002 expansion plans. East Anglia contains the smallest
percentage of organisations planning to expand: at 25 per cent it has dropped 12 points on the first quarter of 2002.

Sector Variations
Across the sectors that were surveyed the organisations that are planning to expand the most are in construction and finance. 43 per cent of firms in these sectors are planning to recruit to grow staff levels over the coming quarter, an increase of eight points for finance but a decrease of three points for construction over 2002 levels.
Redundancies are predicted to be highest in the manufacturing field, with 16 per cent of businesses in
this industry planning to downsize. Interestingly, finance also has a larger than average percentage of
companies predicting redundancies, at 10 per cent.

James Reed, Chief Executive of Reed, comments:
ì2002 was a difficult year for many UK businesses and the job market. It is encouraging to see an improvement, with more organisations now planning to recruit in the coming year, but overall demand still remains below pre-September 11 levels.
ìIt would be wrong to say the slump in some parts of the employment market has reached an end, but ñ to borrow Churchillís memorable phrase ñ we may now be reaching the end of the beginning.î