In the April survey, published today, more than a third indicated they would be adding to their existing staff. Just under a quarter (23%), say they are planning to grow their permanent workforce in the next three months while another 64% intend to keep numbers static.
At the same time, demand for temporary and contract staff remains strong with 93% saying they will either keep their use of agency workers at existing levels or grow them in the short-term with another 81 per doing the same in the longer term.
Commenting on the latest JobsOutlook findings, Roger Tweedy, the REC's Director of research, said: "The current figures really do show we have a transitional jobs market borne out last week by the slight decrease in the unemployment figures. Confidence among employers about their hiring intentions has stayed the same level as last month. At the same time, their reliance on temporary and contract staff is still strong but it is starting to ease slightly.
"The long-term prospects for the jobs market ties in with forecasts that private sector investment and trade will start accelerating in the second half of the year. However, until then, our jobs market will show signs of volatility until the infrastructure for private sector growth is in place to enable more jobs to be created within it."
The report also shows because of the April and May Bank Holidays, there is currently a strong short-term demand for sales and retail staff, while demand for engineering and technical staff remains static. However, there are signs that there will be long term demand in this sector, which may be due to the forecast economic upturn later in the year.
