Temporary work bucking national employment trends.

The use of temporary agency labour has increased again in most sectors, in antithesis to the latest government figures regarding temporary employment.

The manufacturing sector has seen it’s second increase in the use of temps this year, suggesting the industry could be returning to growth in the first quarter of 2012. Date from de Poel shows that the number of hours worked by temporary staff has increased year-on-year by 35% in January and 48% in February as the manufacturing sector has increased its labour needs to support improved levels of output. Reports out by the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) showed levels of activity in manufacturing were at its highest for eight months in January 2012 thanks to a rise in new orders and an increase in production.

The data also showed usage of temporary labour rose by 79% within the Business Services sector, 30% within Care and 4% in Construction. Facilities Management and Logistics sectors reduced their use of temporary labour during February 2012 by 33% and 27% respectively.

In complete contrast the Office of National Statistics figures release today (14/03) show unemployment at a near 17-year high, with 2.67 million people now out of work.  Despite the increase, many commentators have suggested the figures aren’t too bad:

In an interview with the Financial Times,Howard Archer, an economist at HIS Global Insight, said the data were “mixed overall but the rise in unemployment does appear to have moderated recently which supports hopes that the economy is returning to modest growth”.

For a complete overview of the latest employment statistics for both the permanent and temporary arenas take a look at our Employment Snapshot.

Temporary positions on the up, as unemployment continues to climb

Unemployment increased by 48,000 between October and December official figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show. That brings the total amount of people out of work in the UK to 2.67m.

It’s not all bad news though: The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) latest report on jobs showed an improvement on temporary appointments in December. Our monthly figures also show a marked increase in the use of a flexible workforce. e-tips ® data shows the use of temporary staff in the UK rose by 13% in January compared to the same period last year.

 

The TUC have said that the unemployment figures could be more than double the amount that the ONS has announced. They believe the way the figures are calculated skews them. Using an American calculation, which includes temporary agency workers, those in part-time jobs because they cannot find full-time work and recent redundancies, would increase the figure to 6.3 million.

The ONS figures also revealed a slight decrease in youth unemployment but an increase in people claiming job seekers allowance.

The amount of job vacancies rose by almost half a million in the three months to January.