Brits see a Boost in UK Jobs

The Monster UK Employment Index, an offshoot of Monster Worldwide, is a monthly UK-specific report that provides an up-to-date comprehensive analysis of the job market in the United Kingdom, with a specific focus on London jobs. It is part of The European Monster Employment Index, which reports data specific to five nations – France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and Sweden.
Monthly statistics for the Monster Employment Index are gathered from job posting data of Monster and 1400 other representative Web sites. Independently audited and accurate to within 1.5 percent, the Employment Index is available in English, French, Swedish or German.

The latest report from the European Monster Employment Index on the UK Job Market was for UK jobs posted the month of November 2006. Consistent with the start of most holiday seasons, online job availability for numerous seasonal and holiday tasks increased that month. Hospitality, tourism, retail and service workers rose one percent over the prior month, and 20 percent over November 2005, one year earlier. Part of the UK job market growth is attributed to significant job growth in Wales and UK accounting jobs.
The only areas where growth wasn’t achieved were the Midlands and Northern England. In addition to tourism and hospitality, the industries of the UK job market that increased their hiring were banking, insurance and finance. Industries in which jobs decreased were postal, logistics and transportation.
Over the last 14 months, according to Monster, the UK Job Market was in flux, with month to month variations up or down as much as 17 percent.
What is having a negative impact on the UK job market is the increasing tendency to outsource lower paying IT jobs in the UK, such as computer operators and help desk, to India and the Far East. UK operations jobs decreased by 30 percent as a result, and PC support jobs by 25 percent. This had no disastrous overall impact on the UK job market, however, as other job increases balanced out the losses here.
UK managerial positions, for instance, are on the rise in the UK about the same amount as the decrease in subordinate jobs. The UK job market has seen a 50 percent increase year over year in the need for communication managers and a 30 percent increase in product managers.
In 2006, as compared with 2005, it was better to be a full time permanent employee than to work as a contractor within jobs in the UK. While permanent staff jobs increased an average of 20 percent, contract jobs declined 8 percent. Contract consultants, however, took a much greater 30 percent dip. The first decrease in 13 consecutive quarters, this doesn’t bode well for professional entrepreneurs.
The light at the end of this contract tunnel, however, is that for those UK contract workers hired, the pay was much better than last year. Software engineers earned 13 percent more in 2006 than 2005, and training officers realized a 25 percent increase. On average, contractors earned five percent more in 2006 than one year before.
As of August, UK media jobs were 30 percent more abundant than the prior year, as were manufacturing jobs. Finance and retail jobs both increased by 20 percent.