Question of the Month November 2009

In November, we asked respondents to the CE Barometer survey about their employers' current recruitment policies. About the same number of companies was cutting staff - either by voluntary or forced redundancies - as was taking on new people, with 49% saying there was a recruitment freeze.

However, another way of looking at these figures is that only 11% of companies are growing their headcount at the moment - recruiting for new positions.

We asked the same question in November 2008, and it is interesting to note the differences. The big change is the number of companies that now have a recruitment freeze - 49% this year, compared to 32% in November 2008. It would seem that those companies are the ones that were recruiting replacements only a year ago, as this figure has fallen from 35% to 15%.