Recruitment Advice

Europe’s largest recruitment company Hays have reported a loss of 31% in fee income. The recruitment group are specialist is HR, IT and Finance have already announced job cuts this year of 650 and will see a further 250 job cuts over the coming months. The latest round of redundancies will mean that over 27% of the workforce will have been affected.

The Office of National Statistics will reveal next month the number of people that are out of work, this is expected to reach around 3.3 million by the end of 2010 about 10.5 of the UK’s workforce. It is expected that recruitment will stay tough over the coming years.

I recently wrote about the lack of information given to employees at the RBS and the conflicting stories of job cuts and pay rises. It was confirmed yesterday that the initial  job cuts will effect 9000 employees,4500 people in the UK.

The troubled bank that is now owned 70% by the tax payer have said the cuts have been prompted by a downturn in business and the need to create a leaner structure. The plan is to recoup costs of £2.5billion over the next three years.

The RBS claimefd that the job losses are more than likely to be lower due to natural turnover, less agency staff and voluntry redundancy.

Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer has called on the government to urgently put in place a programme of action to protect jobs and said the union would argue for creative solutions to cope during the downturn.

As the new tax year officially begins it would be no great surprise that the Inland Revenue phone lines are going to be busy, however an anonymous employee has come forward and given information that staff are to ignore errors staff to save time and reach call targets.

The whistle-blower added if a customers calls in with a tax inquiry and you spot a mistake on their record you are to ignore it unless they ask you specifically to look at that mistake. If you write to them the post often goes missing, it just disappears, is put into the bin!

She also added half-a-million payment reminder letters were sent out late last week, meaning people were being threatened with surcharges and penalties that they might not even owe

The Inland Revenue have cut 17,000 jobs over the last three years in a efficiency drive. It is reported that the existing staff are worried about how far this is going to go and how worse can it get?

The Royal Bank of Scotland have planned to cut more jobs over the coming months, the reported job cuts are going to effect different parts of the bank across the world.

Sir Philip Hampton the RBS chairman has planned to speak to the shareholders at the banks annual general meeting in Edinburgh. He plans to tell them to expect more job cuts but it is too early to say how many will go and where?

In February the bank announced a reported loss of £24.1 billion for 2008.

Employee Backlash

I wonder how the Managers at RBS are managing there employee relations? I have a couple of friends who have worked for the bank for quite sometime and have enjoyed the financial rewards over the years. However the last 6 months have been very turbulent.

They have been been placed in a pool for redundancy one week and then less than a month later are being offered a substantial pay rise which is much more than the cost of inflation? They think it is a bit of a shambles and they are not sure what they supposed to be expecting next?

The government have launched a recruitment campaign targeting ethnic minorities and women to help the Fire Service reach new equality targets.

This month the Fire and Rescue Service agreed to targets by 2013 that 15% of all the recruits will be female an increase on 2008 of 9.8%. A report by the Department for Communities and Local Government had revealed that only 5% of the Fire and Rescue service were from a ethnic minority background.

The new campaign is designed to change attitudes and perceptions towards a career with the force - focusing specifically on women and ethnic minority groups - rather than the development of a national recruitment campaign. The exact nature of the campaign is still under discussion but it will run across a range of media platforms, including advertising, online and events.

The Insurance firm Legal and General made announcements last week that it had notified staff that there was going to be more redundancies in the coming months. The firm expects there to be another 650 job cuts following a reported loss of £1.5 billion.

The southern based insurance company have offices in Surrey, Hove, Cardiff and London. They have said the new figures will amount to 10% of its workforce. This includes cuts of 450 job losses that were made last month. 

The Union that is associated with the group have said that the union members are very angry and disappointed with the decisions that have been made, they thought that they had seen the worst of the redundancies last month.

Europe’s biggest bank HSBC are planning on more redundancies of up to 1200 staff in the UK.

The company which has around 58,000 staff members in the UK has said the job cuts will hit backroom areas such as IT and human resources rather than front-line employees in branches.

HSBC said 280 jobs would be axed at the Leamington Spa processing centre, 90 in Newport, South Wales, and 150 in London.

The union Unite who are representing some of the staff members at the bank have said that the original figures that have been suggested are not a true representation and the real figures are nearer 2,900 with 500 jobs moving abroad to India. This statement however has been rejected by the bank.

The government have announced today that the figure of people unemployed has reached 2 million, the highest rate in 12 years. The huge number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance increased by a record 138,400 last month to 1.39million.

A chief economist from the British Chambers of Commerce has said: “The outlook for unemployment is worsening and there is an urgent need for action, at this rate, unemployment looks set to reach 3.2million by 2010.

Today news reported that 100 more retail jobs were axed at the lifestyle division of JJB Sports as a further 10 stores closed.

Eight branches of the OSC fashion retailer and two Qube footwear outlets were shut by administrator KPMG, with 121 redundancies. Today’s announcement brings the total number of people losing their jobs with the company to 559, including a string of shop closures in February.

With unemployment reaching its highest level since 1997 employers are either overwhelmed by the amount of applications they are receiving or they are struggling to fill vacancies.

There are areas across the UK like Oldham in Greater Manchester where the ratio of job seekers to vacancies, is almost 31 people claiming job seekers to 1 vacancy.

The Job centre are urging employers to come and advertise there vacancies to help ease the pressure n communities with a high ratio. Travelling times will be more acceptable to those who have been out of work for a longer period of time. The Job Centre New Deal Scheme is to help employers recoup some of the money back, in the hope that they can offer better salaries to those who are travelling further for work.

Debenhams the high street retailer have planned to create more positions by 2010. The retailer currently have 152 stores throughout the UK and have planned to open another eight outlets.

The six new department stores will be opening in Kidderminster, Newcastle upon Tyne, Carmathen, Wakefield Bury and Bath. There are also plans for 3 smaller stores to open this year across the country. This will in total create 1200 jobs.

It comes as good news as there is finally a retailer who are recruiting and are planning to open new stores although they still have had a decline in their profits based on like for like this time last year.