People and the Right Kind of Talent

Although the number of people looking for work has risen in recent months (official UK figures HERE show that >220K people were seeking work in the 3 months to March 2023), however in our industry the question remains – are they the right kind of people with the right talent? The IT industry is still trying to fill a skills shortage in key growth areas such as security, AI, and cloud. However, when it comes to business and application consulting, there is more flexibility to be able to outsource – something we know a lot about as we fill these gaps in many client projects.

What is slightly alarming and rather sad is the number of insolvencies which rose sharply in March to nearly 2,500. Within each of these there will be a story; perhaps of hardship, or struggles with inflation, rising energy prices and the conundrum of trying to find the right staff. And whilst pay lags behind rising prices, I suspect this difficulty in hiring and retaining staff will continue.

An interesting statistic from the ONS (Office for National Statistics) showed that although pay (including bonuses) rose by an average of 6.6% this last quarter, when you account for inflation, in real terms it fell by 2.3%.

IMHO people matter and need to be rewarded. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65301742