U.K. Worker Shortage Intensifies as Starting Salaries Climb

(Bloomberg) -- Britain’s labor shortage intensified at the start of the fourth quarter as the waning supply of workers from the European Union forced firms to pay more.

Overall candidate availability fell at the quickest pace in nine months in October, according to survey data collected by KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. That helped keep starting salary inflation near the fastest in more than three years.

Key Insights

• Vacancies rose across all job categories, with demand steepest for temporary nursing and care staff, and full-time IT and engineering workers.
• Some firms surveyed said they are seeing “ the worst period of staff availability for 20 years,” KPMG Vice Chair James Stewart says.
• “Consequently, we’re seeing wages pushed upwards and a trend of canny workers job hopping to secure a pay rise rather than remaining loyal to their existing employers.”
• The fall in the pound since the Brexit vote and the prospect of workers’ losing their rights to work in the U.K. are discouraging job seekers from the rest of the EU
• The number of people placed into both permanent and temporary roles increased
• REC surveyed around 400 recruitment and employment consultancies

To contact the reporter on this story: Lucy Meakin in London at lmeakin1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Gordon at pgordon6@bloomberg.net, Brian Swint, David Goodman

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