News

The monthly report on Jobs has been issued for March 2011 and reveals that although job growth accelerated in February, pay inflation remained muted.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG Report on Jobs provides the most comprehensive guide to the UK labour market, drawing on original survey data provided by recruitment consultancies. The key points emerging from this month’s report are:

Faster growth of permanent and temporary appointments…

February data signalled strong and accelerated rises in both permanent staff placements and temporary staff billings. The former increased at the sharpest rate in ten months, while the latter posted the greatest rise since May 2007.

…as demand for staff improved

Higher staff appointments were underpinned by robust growth of demand for staff in February. The overall level of job vacancies increased at the strongest rate since April 2010.

Rising levels of candidate availability…

The availability of candidates to fill job vacancies was reported to have increased in the latest survey period. Growth of temporary staff availability remained notably stronger than that of permanent workers.

…constrained inflation of wages and salaries

The rate of inflation of permanent staff salaries eased to a three-month low in February and remained below the survey’s long-run average. Temporary staff hourly pay increased modestly.

Kevin Maughan, Managing Director of Kelburn Recruitment Ltd, commented:

“This is welcome news and suggests that job creation in the private sector is starting to respond to the challenge to offset some of the ongoing public sector job cuts. Currently the strongest demands are in the Engineering & Technical, Construction and IT & Computer sectors. Although I still expect overall unemployment numbers to increase throughout the remainder of this year, there is now hope that 2012 may see a reversal these numbers. The Chancellor in his forthcoming budget now has the opportunity to support this encouraging trend.”

Teresa Schofield, regional leader of Global Marathon Europe, has recently suggested that the gender balance needs to improve in the technology and engineering sectors.
Attitudes toward these sectors, she said, and those held by people working within them must change in order to ensure greater diversity within the workforce. She claimed that too many women move into public sector employment, rather than private, often because of the poor image of manufacturing firms and the work opportunities they offer. Even female professionals with technology and engineering degrees often look elsewhere for employment, Ms Schofield suggested.

“The gender balance has to improve if we don’t want every technically qualified innovator or captain of industry to be male,” she stated. “Do we really believe that women have nothing to contribute and men have all the answers?”

Sandra Norman, Manager of Kelburn Engineering & Technical, commented:

During the course of a year the Kelburn team screens over 25,000 Engineering & Technical applicants. Sadly less than 2% are currently from women, supporting the views of Teresa Schofield and reflecting the perceptions and culture prevalent. On a more positive note, we are now seeing an increased number of female apprentices within the sector, although it will clearly take some time before a more balanced workforce is achieved.

As the implementation date of 1 October 2011 for this new legislation draws ever closer, we have been receiving several requests from Clients for an update of the current situation. Currently little has changed since the seminars we arranged last year. However, we are expecting clarification on several important aspects of these new regulations to be issued over the next two months.

In anticipation of this, we have provisionally arranged for Kevin Green, CEO of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, to present what we hope will be the definitive AWR briefing, at our next Employment Law update which is scheduled for 28th June 2011 – if you are interested in attending please keep this date free in your diary.

Meanwhile, our Consultants will be compiling a list of questions that Clients have regarding the implementation of these regulations as they progressively undertake initial risk assessments with all users of Temporary and Contract Agency staff.

Further details of the seminar will be issued nearer the date.

Far too many examples of badly written adverts continue to be seen with the associated risk of formal action being taken against the advertiser. One well known “serial litigant”, who has brought over 50 tribunal claims against employers and recruitment agencies in recent years, is a past master of exploiting this important legislation.

However, in the recent case of Berry v Recruitment Revolution and others there is some protection from deliberate exploitation of the law, as the EAT has now held that a job applicant cannot bring a discrimination claim in respect of an advert for a job that he has no interest in taking.

Mr Berry, who was in his 50s, had sent an email to Recruitment Revolution, a recruitment agency who had advertised the role, saying that he appeared to be prevented from applying by reason of his age and that unless he heard back he would assume that there was no point in applying. Recruitment Revolution advised Mr Berry that the advertisement had been mistyped and that he should send in his CV, which would be considered with all other CVs received.

Mr Berry ultimately chose not to apply for the advertised job and brought a claim alleging that the advert was unlawfully discriminatory under regulation 7(1)(a) of the Age Regulations (which provides that it is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a person through its recruitment arrangements) by referring to “school leavers” or “recent graduates”.

The EAT dismissed his appeal holding that while a job advert could form part of “arrangements” for recruitment under regulation 7(1)(a) and could therefore in theory be the basis of a discrimination claim, a claimant had to be impacted by the “arrangements” in question. In this case the job advert had not impacted upon Mr Berry and he had not been deterred from applying for the job by the allegedly discriminatory wording. He therefore could not bring a discrimination claim.

In addition, the EAT indicated that the purpose of the Age Regulations is not to “provide a source of income for persons who complain of arguably discriminatory advertisements for job vacancies they have in fact no intention to fill.” They warned that “those who try to exploit the Regulations for financial gain in such circumstances are liable… to find themselves facing a liability for costs.” This is clearly a warning to serial litigants such as Mr Berry.

Practical Tip

Kelburn Recruitment Ltd offer a full Recruitment Advertising service which includes a compliance check of the wording used, in addition to the preparation, design and submission of the Clients job advert. The cost is little or no more than you would encounter when advertising directly in the media, but you benefit from our knowledge and experience to ensure your job adverts are non- discriminatory whilst also effective in attracting talented and relevant applicants.

Don’t forget that employer’s NIC goes up to 13.8% from 6 April.  If you are intending to pay bonuses over the next few weeks you might want to consider bringing them forward to before 6 April in order to avoid this higher NIC charge. Regarding Temporary Workers, the cost of this increased tax will now be reflected in any new placements that we arrange, but the good news is that for ongoing contracts we will be leaving charge rates unaltered for our Clients.

Default retirement age to be dropped
Under Regulations due to come into force on 6 April 2011, the default retirement age together with the retirement procedures will be abolished entirely from 1 October but transitional arrangements will be introduced to deal with employees who have received retirement notices before 6 April. After 5 April 2011 employers will no longer be able to issue retirement notices to trigger the retirement procedure. Also from 6 April, it will no longer be acceptable for an employer to automatically decline to employ someone who is either 65 (or who has reached the employers normal retirement age if higher) or who is within six months of reaching that age. For further guidance there is a helpful ACAS booklet, titled “Working without the default retirement age.

Additional Paternity Leave
New rights to Additional Paternity Leave and pay will come into effect for parents of children with an expected week of childbirth (or matching date in the case of adoption) that falls on or after 3 April 2011. The new provisions will give eligible employees the right to use a portion of the mother’s maternity leave (or the leave of the other adopting parent) in order to take up to six months Additional Paternity Leave. Although referred to as paternity leave the additional rights will apply to the father of the relevant child (whether married to the mother or not). It will also extend to civil partners or partners of the mother or adopting parent.

Flexible working
The right to request flexible working will be extended to parents with a child under the age of 18 from 6 April 2011. Currently the right applies to parents with a child under the age of 17 or 18 if the child has a disability.

Immigration
Last November, the Home Secretary announced plans to curb the number of migrant workers entering the UK under Tiers 1 and 2 of the points based system. The Government has now published a “statement of intent” which sets out the changes it will make to the points based system from 6 April 2011. A cap of 20,700 applicants per year will be imposed for Tier 2 (excluding inter-company transfer applicants).

End of the Worker Registration Scheme
Currently workers from the following countries are required to register under the Worker Registration Scheme (WRS) when starting employment in the UK:
• Czech Republic; Estonia;
• Hungary;
• Latvia;
• Lithuania;
• Poland;
• Slovakia; or
• Slovenia.
Under European Union law the UK is only able to continue operation of the WRS until the end of April.

…and what’s not coming into force for April 2011?

Extension of time off for training on hold
The right to request time off to train will not now be extended to organisations with less than 250 employees, as was originally proposed.

Further delay for the Bribery Act 2010
The Bribery Act which was due to be implemented from 6 April 2011 will be delayed for the second time and at present no further implementation date has been announced.

Kelburn Recruitment are pleased to announce the sale of their Industrial division to Staffline plc. Following completion of this disposal, Kelburn will continue to focus on their traditional core recruitment services of Permanent, Temporary, contract and Interim workers for the following sectors:

• Commercial & Office Support
• Engineering & Technical
• Accountancy & Finance
• Sales & Marketing
• Human Resource
• Supply Chain

It is a great tribute to the Kelburn Industrial team that they were approached by a national provider with the reputation of Staffline and the deal will provide significant benefits to both parties. Kelburn will now concentrate on the development and future delivery of their professional recruitment services to ensure that their offer remains ahead of the competition in terms of value added to the recruitment process.

The announcement of the intended marriage of Prince William to Kate Middleton on 29th April 2011 was quickly followed by the granting of an additional bank holiday to mark the “happy and momentous occasion”. This means that the country will now enjoy two consecutive “4 day weekends” towards the end of April, and has left employers wondering what their legal obligations are.

In England and Wales there are normally eight bank and public holidays each year (Scotland has nine, Northern Ireland has ten), but there will now also be an additional public holiday on 29 April 2011.

For employees, the position will be determined by their employment contract. If the contract states that the employee is entitled to a set amount of days paid leave plus bank and public holidays, (e.g. 20 days plus bank/public holidays), then he/she will be entitled to the benefit of the extra holiday as paid leave, unless the contract contains provisions to specifically limit paid leave to the usual bank/public holidays.

The situation could however be different for temporary workers operating through a Contract for Service with a recruitment agency. Most agencies will only charge Clients for the actual hours worked by their contractors, as confirmed by weekly timesheets. In such circumstances, there would be no cost for the extra bank holiday.

Finally, looking further ahead, the same issues are likely to arise again as we are set to have an additional holiday on 5 June 2012 in England and Wales and Northern Ireland to celebrate the Queens Diamond Jubilee.

On the 1 January 2011 the National Minimum Wage Regulations were amended. Employers who now operate travel and subsistence schemes will not be able to take the expenses paid to the worker into account when calculating whether NMW has been paid to workers.

Expenses payments made under the travel and subsistence schemes will be added to the list of disregarded payments meaning that employers will need to ensure that they pay their workers the NMW in addition to any payments workers are entitled to under the travel and subsistence scheme.

Prior to 1 January 2011 if a worker received say six pounds per hour take home pay which was made up in part by expenses for travel claimed under a travel and subsistence scheme the employer could still have argued that the NMW was met. However under the new provisions the employer will have to disregard the element of the six pounds which is made up of the worker’s expenses and if the remaining sum is below the applicable NMW rate, this will constitute a breach of the NMW Regulations.

Therefore the employer will either need to cease the travel and dispensation scheme, top up the wage to meet NMW levels or pay travel expenses on top. Any changes to the operation of a travel and subsistence scheme is likely to amount to a variation to the employee’s contractual terms and employer should therefore take legal advice before altering the way in which employees are remunerated.

Kelburn Recruitment have expressed concerns at recent evidence of a return to corner cutting in the recruitment industry, which could both damage career prospects for work seekers and waste the time of prospective employers.

The recent upswing in demand for workers has lead to some recruiters not qualifying candidates before providing their details to prospective employers. This is not only a bad habit and potentially damaging to the prospects of job seekers, but is also in direct contravention of the REC Code of Practice.

Before a recruiter introduces a candidate to a Client, they should first discuss the opportunity with the candidate to ensure that the candidate is fully suitable for the position and willing to apply for the job. Unfortunately, with the advent of online Job Boards and Social Media, it is now too easy for a recruiter to obtain enough information to put a candidate’s details forward to a Client without even speaking to the candidate. Put simply, the recruiter takes a punt that the candidate could be talked around to considering the position.

If you encounter this practice then please let us know. Our recommendation is that you refuse the introduction and decline to undertake any future business with recruiters adopting this slip shod approach.

At Kelburn all our Consultants are fully trained and committed to observing the REC Code of Practice. You can be reassured that we will always take care to ensure candidates are suitable before recommending them for a role and that they are genuinely interested in working for our Client.