A study conducted by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) found that Britain’s job market is experiencing record numbers of vacancies, with a total of 2.68 million active postings.

In the first week of November around 221,000 new job adverts were posted and the REC feels that this increase shows no signs of slowing down in the run up to Christmas.

The study showed that the largest increase in vacancies was amongst driving instructors, prison officers and some key workers such as forklift truck drivers, secondary school teachers and care workers. In comparison, construction sector roles such as painters and decorators, roofers and bricklayers had decreased, which was thought to be in response to supply chain delays which is putting constraints on the building industry.

Industry experts feel the increase in job movement could be because many employees had been waiting to move due to uncertainty caused by the pandemic, whilst some over 50s had now decided that it is the time to retire - the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey recently found that more older workers had left the workforce after being made redundant., whereas Jonathan Boys, Labour Market Economist at the CIPD put the number of older workers were taking early retirement or entering inactivity down to illness or disability.

He stated:

“Worryingly, there’s a trend of people leaving the labour market completely, transitioning from employment to a state of inactivity,”

Kate Palmer, HR Advice and Consultancy Director at Peninsula, said that recruitment managers “must proactively identify their target employees’ priorities and tailor their job advertisements to include these areas”.

Whereas some experts felt that these record number of vacancies just might give employees the better say in pay negotiations.