No one is indispensable, but the more senior you are in an organisation, the harder it is to replace you, according to the latest figures from the Recruitment Confidence Index.
Out of those firms expecting to recruit to the board over the next six months, three in five - 60 per cent - are expecting trouble. A similar figure - 57 per cent - expect to have problems recruiting to other senior posts. However, only 44 per cent predict difficulties finding good junior managers and only 29 per cent expect to have trouble filling graduate jobs.
The Recruitment Confidence Index was set up nearly four years ago by Cranfield School of Management and the Daily Telegraph to measure employers'' recruitment expectations and business confidence. It now attracts responses from nearly 2,000 employers in the public and private sectors and is one of a basket of measures employers use to test the health of the economy.
Business confidence is an issue for employers. This quarter''s RCI findings show that it has plummeted over the past year. It now stands at a net figure of -5 per cent, down from 37 per cent last summer. Service sector employers are slightly more optimistic than their colleagues in manufacturing but there are still more service firms expecting things to get worse before they get better.
However, lack of confidence does not appear to have hit recruitment expectations. The main RCI index, which predicts changes in recruitment activity now stands at 125 for all staff compared with 113 three months ago. However, nearly half of respondents - 43 per cent - said there would be no change in their recruitment activity.
Good bosses are hard to find
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