RCSA releases Quarterly Research report Nov 2008

• Business confidence has dropped to the lowest since 2001, a drop of 21% while expectations of growth have become negative for the first time with a drop of 5% to -0.8%
• There has been a strong increase in the number of applicants for positions and become considerably easier to find appropriate applicants for positions. Conditions have improved back to those experienced in April 2004
• Staff turnover has remained stable at 36% pa organisations have contracted by 2.1% and become negative for the first time since December 2001
• There has been a substantial drop in permanent full-time placements while on-hire employment and contractor placements have increased slightly. 12% of on-hired employees converted to permanent positions in the last six months while permanent employees converting to on-hired employment was 5%.
• Permanent placements have dropped by 4% to 5% thus on-hired replacements have become proportionally more significant with a rise of 3% to 94% of the total number of placements
• Accordingly, the proportion of revenue from on-hired employment has risen by 6% to 54% while that of recruitment services has dropped 3% to 42%
• Concerns about the state of the economy have jumped again from 84% to 94% while lack of suitable candidates has dropped to 3rd spot. Concerns about the lack of hiring intentions of clients has jumped again from 3rd place to 2nd with concerns increasing 21% to 88%. Concerns about maintaining profitability/fee levels have also increased 20% to 70% an along with it concerns about price undercutting
• The 2 skills with the biggest shortages are non-building professional engineers, associates and technician  experiencing a 6% - 8% drop in demand.
• The demand for health professionals and nurses remains static while  rising to in place.
• The demand for  business professionals has slumped for the second survey in a row  by a further15% to 21% from 4th to 14th place.
• The demand for building professionals has also slumped 10% to 18%.
• Demand for other skills had generally dropped 3% - 8% and is consistent with a general easing of  the economy and labour market conditions
• The majority of respondents (94%) source candidates by approaching passive candidates. A two thirds use niche or specialist internet job boards while nearly two thirds use refer a friend incentives
• Nearly two thirds took action to address the market downturn in the last three months and nearly half addressed marketing expenses. The next priority is the number of recruiters per staff member followed by international revenue