The Olympics could provide a boost to employer confidence as a quarter of UK bosses say they think the games will be good for their businesses with only four percent predicting a negative impact on their bottom line, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation’s (REC) latest JobsOutlook survey.

Employers report that they will continue to grow their permanent staff numbers and the number of employers planning to increase their use of temporary workers has risen. However, in response to this month’s survey, there was also an increase in the number of employers saying they intend to reduce their use of temporary staff – illustrating the fragility of employer confidence across the UK.

The decline in confidence witnessed in last month’s report continues in June with the REC’s barometer of employer confidence dipping a further two points to reach the level last recorded in June 2011.

JobsOutlook’s survey of employers reports that:

• 63 percent said they planned to increase the number of permanent employees over the next three months (compared to 66 percent last month)
• 60 percent expect to increase permanent hires over the next 3-12 month period (compared to 63 percent last month)
• 31 percent plan to increase agency worker numbers in the next quarter (the same number as last month) with 22 percent saying they intend to decrease their use of agency workers (up from 20 percent last month)
• 28 percent say they will increase agency workers over the next  3-12 month period (compared to 26 percent last month) with 19 percent saying they will decrease their use of agency workers (up from 15 percent last month)
• 24 percent say they think the Olympics will be good for their business

REC’s Director of Research, Roger Tweedy, says:

“There is a sense of hesitancy out there as employers are buffeted with bad news from the continent and are staring at official growth figures that seem to be stuck. But there are still reasons to be positive. Consumer confidence is rising slowly, and the impact of that should filter through to businesses in a few months. Barring any terrible shocks from the eurozone and with the potential of a boost to business from the Olympics we could still be on track for slow improvements in job creation as time progresses.”

Credit: REC