By Ben Chernoff
Recruiters need to have a clear understanding of the rates of pay for certain positions if they are going to advertise roles competitively.
After all, the salary a person earns could directly impact the fees earned by an agency, depending on the structure of their charging system.
At the moment, certain positions demand higher salaries and there is active competition within certain sectors, such as finance and IT, to recruit through the offer of a higher wage.
As a result, the average total pay growth for the private sector was 6.2 per cent in December 2021 to February 2022, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Private sector total pay growth was last higher than this rate in January to March 2007 when it was 6.5 per cent.
The sectors to see the most significant pay growth are Finance and business services (9.8 per cent) and Wholesaling, retailing, hotels and restaurants (6.4 per cent).
However, the surge in wage growth in the latter is thought to be the result of many workers returning from furlough compared to the previous year.
Will wages continue to rise across the board?
For those in work, the rate at which pay is rising may actually be slowing as employers hold back on offering pay rises.
New data from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has found that while half of the companies are providing basic pay awards, 48 per cent reported that no raises are being offered or they did not currently plan to provide any this year.
The results, while disappointing for many employees, are somewhat unsurprising given the cost crisis that many businesses currently face.
This is reflected in sentiments from the study, which showed that one in three private-sector managers were worried about the financial health of their company.
Even those offering pay rises were only awarding a 2.8 per cent rise on average, which is well behind the rate of inflation.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that recruiters face a tougher task when pushing for higher salaries for workers, as unemployment remains so low.
With lots of employers competing over the same in-demand roles there is likely to be plenty of room to negotiate a better deal for recruits, which in turn could help push up the fee income of recruitment agencies.
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