A Busy End of Year

I can’t recall the last time I saw a November and early December like this year’s in the UK. I can only recall that it was long ago, far away (in the States) and at the top of an economic boom. I’m not making much of a dent in my backlog because I’m still busy.

Normally, my main lines of business go into what I call ‘year-end shutdown’ around mid-November. From then until about mid-January, not much really happens. Companies collect CVs but don’t sift them, interview anyone, draft contracts or hire employees until after the New Year. Negotiations don’t happen. Even projects in progress sputter and stall as people go on holiday.

Normally I use this portion of the year to catch up on work in my backlog while there are fewer distractions and interruptions.

After years of struggling with the glum UK economy, watching enviously while recovery began and gathered steam in the USA, the UK is actually into recovery now.

Recruiters are frenetic at a time of year when they are usually quiet. Most of them accept telephone calls from job seekers who are following up on their applications. Some of them send email to those who are not chosen. In the depths of the downturn, phone calls to follow up were not accepted and even autoresponder acknowledgements of applications were rarely sent.

But it is a strange recovery.

Although the official unemployment rate is down, the figure does not seem to fit reality. I believe it no longer fully reflects how many people are doing enough remunerative work. For example, it excludes people who ‘went into business for themselves’ out of necessity because months or years of trying to find a job came up empty. Such people are counted as employed regardless of whether they are able to make any sales or land any clients. There is no distinction between the new ‘business owners’ who are making ends meet and those who are not.

The single number widely circulated in the media also does not distinguish between full employment and underemployment, in terms of work hours or in terms of the nature of the work. Having a zero-hour contract counts as being employed even though it may mean no work at all in a given week. Perhaps it excludes the swelling number of people who are sanctioned (get their benefits cut off) for weeks at a time for failing to meet criteria that they are not always told about.

Every contract or job advertised still gets overwhelming volumes of applications. This pattern goes across the board. A hospital near me advertised a low grade administrative job recently and had to close the posting early because they got too many applications. IT project management contracts get about 200 applications, even when they are short term and have relatively stringent requirements. If an application does not reach the recruiter on the business day when the posting first appears, it’s too late—the shortlist has already gone to the hiring manager.

After the early portion of economic recovery, this shouldn’t be happening. There shouldn’t be so many people desperate to grab every piece of paying work. Neither should there be a huge increase in the number of people seeking help from food banks, or a number of other items in the news that indicate a growing number of people in financial desperation.

I am delighted to see economic recovery here. But it has more ground to cover before it will be a solid, healthy recovery.