Bleak outlook for recruitment in year ahead

Two-thirds of UK employers experienced recruitment difficulties due to skills shortages last year and nearly half were pessimistic about the prospects for 2006, according to the latest quarterly Recruitment Confidence Index (RCI).

The RCI, produced by the Cranfield School of Management in association with Personnel Today, reveals that more than one-third of the 1,000 respondents feel the quality of applicants has fallen over the past year. Almost half say the skills shortage has worsened in the past 12 months.

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The most difficult roles to recruit for were found to be management posts (26%), followed by technical positions (10%), engineering jobs (9%) and IT (5%).

The most common strategy for overcoming skills shortages is to develop existing employees.