Employers are preparing for a four-day extreme heat warning across much of the UK this week, as temperatures could soar to up to 40°C.
The Met Office has today issued a rare red weather warning – the highest level of alert – for parts of southern England and Wales as temperatures rise to record levels.
The red warning is in place between 9:00am on Wednesday 24 June and 9:00pm on Thursday 25 June.
The Met Office had already put an amber weather warning in place until 11:59pm on Thursday, 25 June, encompassing large swathes of England and Wales. More northerly regions are only under this warning for Wednesday and Thursday.
It said that the current highest temperature on record for June could be broken, which is 35.6°C and was set in 1976.
Deputy chief forecaster Tom Crabtree said: “The combination of heat and humidity will be oppressive and bring impacts across society from public health and infrastructure, to power and water supplies.”
He added that consecutive warm nights that do not drop below 20°C will make it harder for people to recover from the daytime heat, exacerbating these impacts.
The extreme temperatures will lead many employees to question whether it is legally “too hot to work” or to ask for flexible arrangements such as earlier starts.
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There is no legal maximum working temperature in the UK, unlike other countries such as Spain, where the maximum legal indoor working temperature for sedentary work is 27°C and 25°C for light physical work.
Instead, employers are obliged under health and safety legislation to provide a temperature that is “reasonable”.
In May, the Climate Change Committee advised the UK government that a maximum legal temperature range could help employers protect workers’ safety.
Unions have also campaigned for greater regulation around maximum working temperatures, and the TUC introduced workplace inspections for heat safety.
In response to high temperature forecasts, workplace conciliation service Acas made recommendations for employers on how to manage the challenges presented by the heatwave.
“Some workers with certain health conditions or disabilities may be adversely affected by the heat. The hotter weather can also impact public transport, which can disrupt people’s journeys to and from work,” said chief executive Niall Mackenzie.
“Acas has some top tips for employers to help ensure their businesses remain productive during the heatwave while keeping staff happy, too.”
Employers’ legal “duty of care” to their staff includes not only reasonable working temperatures in their place of work, but also when working from home.
At work, this could include providing employees with suitable drinking water or extra breaks so staff can get cold drinks, Acas added. Further measures could include relaxing uniform or dress code requirements.
For vulnerable staff, employers should assess risks and try to reduce or remove these, for example by providing fans, air-cooling units or more frequent breaks.
Risk of accidentsJoshua Hughes, partner and head of the complex injury team at Bolt Burdon Kemp, warned that exceptional temperatures could impair concentration and raise the likelihood of workplace accidents.
“Exceptional temperatures like those we are currently seeing across London and much of England are more than simply uncomfortable – they can create genuinely dangerous working conditions,” he said.
“Despite growing calls for action, whilst there is no upper legal limit for workplace temperatures in the UK, employers still have a clear duty to provide a safe working environment and to properly assess risks posed by extreme heat.”
Bus and train drivers in London could be working in temperatures as high as 40C, he added, alongside warnings of disruption across the transport network as the infrastructure struggles to cope.
“Many of the workplace injury cases we handle arise because employers have failed to take reasonable steps to protect staff from foreseeable risks,” said Hughes.
“As periods of extreme heat become increasingly common in the UK, businesses must ensure that heat-related risks are treated as a serious health and safety issue rather than simply an inconvenience.”
Employee detrimentPatrick Macken, a solicitor at Richard Nelson LLP, said that employees could have recourse to the Employment Rights Act 1996 if they are subject to detriment because they left the workplace due to “serious and imminent danger”.
“While that sounds like a high threshold, the danger doesn’t need to be life-threatening; it includes exposure to harm, injury, or risk. Even the risk of danger is enough to trigger statutory protection,” he said.
Detriment in this context could mean disciplinary action, for example, or anything that “a reasonable employee could perceive as placing them at a disadvantage”.
Macken advised: “While each case is subject to its own merits, employers ought to be mindful of health and safety measures, and avoid knee-jerk decisions to discipline or dismiss employees who take preventative measures, such as adjusting their uniform or opening doors, to stay safe in the heat.”
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Car manufacturer BMW is reported to be in talks with staff representatives as it prepares to cut up to 5% of its workforce.
The German company issued a profit warning last week saying that “structural and efficiency measures are being intensified” to respond to market forces, including the impact of conflict in the Middle East and weakening demand in China.
According to Reuters, around 7,700 positions are expected to be removed through natural attrition, including retirement, voluntary resignation and other forms of employee turnover.
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“We have strong product momentum: With the Neue Klasse, we will put the strongest BMW portfolio in history on the roads over the next two years,” said Milan Nedeljković, chairman of the board of management of BMW AG.
“At the same time, we will adapt our current structures and processes to the drastic downturn in market conditions. It is our entrepreneurial responsibility, therefore, to significantly intensify and accelerate our ongoing measures. It’s all about speed and efficiency.”
The 5% workforce reduction is expected to happen by the end of this year. The company said efficiency measures would have a “one-time negative impact on earnings in the second half of 2026”.
A works council spokesperson told Reuters: “We are initially working on viable solutions, through dialogue and with a sense of responsibility toward our employees.”
Fellow carmaker Volkswagen recently announced plans to cut 35,000 jobs in Germany by 2030, and around 20,000 of these roles have already been agreed through voluntary redundancy.
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Thursday 25 June 2026, 2:00pm BST
Most companies treat engagement and performance as separate ideas, but that’s a mistake. To succeed over time, employees need to feel both connected to their work and confident that the company will do well.
Sustainable high performance needs an engaging culture and performance confidence. Measure those two and you get a clear, forward‑looking read on whether your culture will deliver results.
This Personnel Today webinar, in association with Culture Amp, examines the people and culture platform’s research from more than 1,800 global companies, as it introduces its Performance Culture Quadrant, a data-backed framework that transforms insights into a strategy for success.
Editor Rob Moss is joined by Sarah Muljiani, senior people scientist at Culture Amp, who will show you a simple way to measure engagement and performance confidence, identify where you are today and take practical steps to move your culture forward.
Register now to learn about:
The ROI of Peak Performance and the psychological link between culture and performance Practical, people science-backed strategies to propel your organisation onto a path to sustainable high performance The Performance Culture Diagnostic, a new tool designed to pinpoint the state of your workplace culture and bridge the gap between engagement and performance.This free 60-minute webinar includes an in-depth presentation on Culture Amp’s global data insights and an audience Q&A.
Reserve your place on the webinar now
About our speaker
Sarah Muljiani is a senior people scientist for Culture Amp in the EMEA region, with a strong focus on Middle East & Benelux customers. She has a BSc in Psychology from University of Birmingham and an MSc in Industrial/Organisational and Business Psychology from University College London. In her role, Sarah partners with customers in collecting, understanding, and taking action on employee feedback through industry best practice and applied I/O psychology concepts. Prior to Culture Amp, she has worked in a professional services firm and a Canadian-based Pension Fund specialising in all things HR, Talent Management, Engagement, Assessment and Selection across a range of industries in Dubai, and more recently in London. Sarah’s main areas of interest include Employee Wellbeing, Leadership Development, People Consulting and Mental Health.
This webinar was originally planned for 21 May 2026 and has been rescheduled
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Employment lawyers have said that the government’s consultation on reforms to zero-hours contracts and agency worker protections could provide the clearest indication yet of how an Andy Burnham-led government may approach employment law and labour market regulation.
The comments come in the wake of Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield by-election. The Greater Manchester mayor is widely expected to challenge Sir Keir Starmer over the leadership of the Labour party.
According to employment specialists at Constantine Law, a Burnham-led government may signal a more “interventionist” approach to workplace regulation than Starmer. However, this is countered by the fact that he has sought out advice from Andy Haldane, a former Bank of England chief economist; Richard Hughes, a former chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility; and Jim O’Neill, a crossbench peer and former Treasury minister who worked on George Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse.
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Constantine Law argues that one of the key challenges facing any future administration would be balancing Labour’s commitment to strengthening workers’ rights with the need to promote economic growth and preserve the flexibility that has long characterised the UK labour market.
Zero hoursIt said the most consequential reforms may be around zero hours, which are under consultation until 25 August.
This includes proposals that could reshape workforce flexibility across a range of sectors, including healthcare, retail, hospitality, logistics, and agriculture, including agency work.
The decisions taken on zero-hours reform will tell employers a great deal about the direction of travel under any future Burnham administration” – John Hayes, Constantine Law
John Hayes, managing partner at Constantine Law, said the consultation represented an important test of the government’s policy direction.
“The decisions taken on zero-hours reform will tell employers a great deal about the direction of travel under any future Burnham administration,” he said. “The consultation presents a series of choices that could either preserve labour market flexibility or impose substantial new obligations on employers.”
Issues under consideration include the length of reference periods used to calculate guaranteed hours, eligibility criteria for guaranteed-hours offers, minimum notice periods for shifts, and compensation arrangements when shifts are cancelled or changed at short notice.
Flexibility is keyHayes argued that labour market flexibility has historically been one of the UK’s economic strengths, helping to maintain lower levels of youth unemployment than many European countries.
He added that concerns about rising numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) highlighted the importance of maintaining routes into work.
“The interests of employers and workers are often more aligned than political debates suggest,” Hayes said. “Policymakers must be careful not to undermine those opportunities.”
Vital changesThe government says the zero-hours reforms will end one-sided flexibility and help people plan their finances and daily lives. Those who enjoy the benefits of zero-hour work may keep their existing contracts if they wish.
Ministers maintain that the reforms would help save workers in some of the most deprived areas up to £600 in lost income from the hidden costs of insecure work.
Business secretary Peter Kyle said: “It’s not right that people can work regular hours but still have no certainty about their pay from week to week. These vital changes will mean more certainty for millions of people and will save the lowest-paid workers hundreds of pounds.”
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Probation officers’ excessive workloads are putting the public ‘at direct risk’, according to Napo, the trade union that represents probation and family court staff.
According to union officials, members say they are unable to cope with the growing number of ex-offenders they are being asked to supervise, and could be set to launch strike action.
Last year, an investigation by the National Audit Office found that the Probation Service was “under significant strain” since it returned to full public ownership in 2021.
Staff shortages and skills gaps were major factors in poor performance, the NAO found, with probationers adequately assessing risk of harm in just 28% of cases.
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From September, the government is planning to expand its use of tagging for ex-offenders so that up to 40,000 individuals will be monitored by tags and overseen by probation officers. This means a 40% increase in monitoring cases for staff.
Tania Bassett, Napo national official, said: “Excessive workloads and staff burnout poses a direct risk to the public, with staff being unable to effectively manage the risk of their clients in the community.
“Added to this is the shortage of accommodation, which will result in more people being homeless and therefore more likely to reoffend.”
She added that managers were discussing removing a workload measurement tool that would show the level of tasks officers were dealing with, putting them at further risk.
The Ministry of Justice announced plans in March to recruit 1,300 extra probation officers as part of a £700 million investment up to 2029.
The Guardian reports that the union’s executive has voted for a motion that “the current position is untenable and cannot continue”.
The executive claims that HM Prison and Probation Service leadership has “demonstrably failed in its duty of care to the workforce of the Probation Service, and this represents a reckless disregard for our welfare and professional integrity as well as the safety of our communities”.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson told the newspaper: “We remain committed to working closely with trade unions to ensure our staff continue to get the support they need to cut crime and protect the public.
“We have full confidence in Probation Service leadership to deliver the necessary changes and improvements.”
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Royal Mail has 6,500 postal workers off sick every day, out of a total of about 130,000 employees, its chief executive has warned.
Martin Seidenberg, the chief executive of International Distribution Services (IDS), the Royal Mail owner, told The Times CEO Summit that the business wanted to be at the “vanguard” of efforts to tackle the nation’s economic inactivity problems. The absences at the Royal Mail cost the organisation £200 million a year, he said.
“It has a cost to us, and of course an impact to you, to society, because of the quality that we can deliver or not deliver,” Seidenberg said, adding that was “super important for us to fix”.
In response to its issues with sickness absence, IDS has given all of its 130,000 staff 24-hour access to an online GP.
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“We’ve been very surprised how heavily this is being used,” Seidenberg said. “We like it, because quite frankly, we believe that the sooner we can take care of our people and they have access to medical support, the sooner they’re likely to return to the job.”
Seidenberg also warned that the UK’s education system was failing to equip children with the technology skills needed when they move into work.
He spoke alongside Sir Charlie Mayfield, the former chairman of John Lewis who led the government’s Keep Britain Working review. Mayfield said it was no surprise that school leavers were generally unprepared for employment because “we’ve created a system where education and employment have never been more separate”.
In addition to what is being taught in the classroom, Mayfield pointed to work experience as an example of how the UK was failing to ready young people for their careers. “People basically don’t do work experience anymore [because] we’ve made it so difficult for people to do it,” he said. He gave an example of a plumber who might be open to having a young person still at school shadow him for a few hours, but cannot because he does not have employers’ liability insurance. “It’s madness and yet it is also fixable. We need to sort out the whole pathways into work.”
One of the traditional ways from school to work is apprenticeships – paid jobs that allow young people to work and gain hands-on experience, while also studying for a formal qualification.
“The easiest and most valuable person to recruit is the one you’ve already got in the business,” Mayfield said. “There are very few opportunities to drive growth that actually benefit employers, benefit individuals, save on welfare, don’t cost a tonne of money and don’t have to take a long time, and these are all right in front of us.”
Also speaking at the summit was Jennie Daly, the chief executive of housebuilder Taylor Wimpey. She told delegates that many employers in the construction industry had scaled back their apprenticeship programmes in response to higher employment costs.
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As many of us swelter and watch the football and dream of holidays, some are planning Christmas parties. Meanwhile, a new World Cup hero is hailed, thanks to LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a bit like a Facebook for business. Some use it to genuinely network; others to find work. Some use it … well, just to show off. But for Irish-born Roberto Lopes, a footballer for Ireland’s Shamrock Rovers club, LinkedIn was the medium for him to become a legend of the beautiful game.
The defender, nicknamed Pico, was a newly qualified mortgage adviser 10 years ago, playing part-time for Bohemians in the League of Ireland.
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When he was originally contacted in 2018 by Cape Verde football manager Rui Águas in Portuguese, he did what many of us do with unsolicited messages on the platform – he ignored it, thinking it was spam.
It was only when he received a follow-up message from Águas in English that he realised it was an offer to play international football for Cape Verde. Águas had spotted he was eligible to play for the island nation through his father.
Águas wrote: “Hi Roberto, have you had a chance to consider what I said to you?”.
Lopes, now feeling a bit rude about ignoring the original message, put Águas’s words into Google Translate and found it said: “We’re looking at getting new players into the Cape Verde squad and would you be interested in declaring for Cape Verde?”
Cape Verde’s draw with tournament favourites Spain on Monday – one of the biggest shocks of any World Cup as measured by the difference in rankings between the sides – has elevated Lopes to star status, particularly as the team achieved the incredible result while only committing one foul, a new record in the World Cup finals.
The story sent several in the Personnel Today office to check their spam and mentally clean their football boots. But alas, the talent spotters have failed to do their job properly, once again.
June is the new November for HR party-planningA further extreme heatwave beckons, the World Cup is in full flow, the cricket’s on and Wimbledon is about to start. HR is on the alert for absences, productivity lapses and inappropriate banter.
Yet, amid this hot mess, Personnel Today has been alerted that HR should be planning Christmas parties.
According to event booking platform Tagvenue, HR teams are “moving to secure spaces six months in advance” and the Christmas party planning window is moving earlier than ever before, making June and July the new autumn when it comes to festive party planning.
HR teams are increasingly starting the process in June because they know the best venues and dates disappear quickly – Artur Stepaniak, Tagvenue
Such a level of forward-thinking seems wildly inappropriate as air conditioning systems teeter on the edge of collapse, the colleague sent out to buy ice lollies has failed to return and the cluster of lads outside the pub clutching lagers exponentially expands.
There are statistics too – this is no baseless claim. Apparently, 12% of Christmas venue hire activity is taking place in June – marking a 75% increase compared with June 2022. “Hmmm…. 12%? It’s not exactly a rush,” Personnel Today’s resident party planner exclaimed.
Artur Stepaniak, co-founder at Tagvenue, is serious, however, although we are definitely not. He says: “What we’re seeing is a clear shift in how organisations approach their end-of-year celebrations. Christmas parties used to be something many companies thought about in September or October. Now, HR teams are increasingly starting the process in June because they know the best venues and dates disappear quickly.”
As the temperature reaches 30°C, I wonder if the Cape Verde team has its Christmas party planned.
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Reports about high youth unemployment sit alongside surveys showing persistent skills shortages. Robin Adda looks at how we can solve the conundrum where young people can’t find work and employers can’t find talent.
The latest report from Skills England paints a worrying picture of the UK labour market. Employers continue to report persistent skills shortages across key sectors, with demand for priority roles expected to grow significantly over the next decade.
This comes at a time when a new major report shows how youth unemployment has risen to its highest level in a decade, with more than one million young people now not in education, employment or training (Neet).
On the surface, these may appear to be two separate issues. In reality, they are intrinsically connected. The solution to both lies in how we identify, develop and invest in skills.
AI will continue to dominate headlines as a key driver behind this and so it should. It is reshaping the workplace at an unprecedented pace. But it is not the whole story.
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The bigger issue is that many organisations have become focused on immediate productivity rather than laying the foundations. With rising costs and economic uncertainty, it’s easy to go down this route – consequently, businesses are investing less in the pipeline, while many traditional entry-level opportunities continue to disappear.
Government initiatives such as those outlined in the Skills England report (the Growth and Skills Levy and Youth Guarantee) are positive steps, but they cannot solve this challenge alone.
Employers are still the biggest influence on how talent enters and progresses through the workforce, meaning businesses must play their part.
Here are some areas where businesses can make a tangible difference to their own skills gaps, and the unemployment issue – youth and beyond.
Hire for potential, not just experienceOne of the biggest barriers facing young people today is the expectation that they arrive already equipped – the never-ending cycle of needing experience to get a job and needing a job to get experience.
Employers should place greater emphasis on transferable skills such as curiosity and the ability to learn. Technical skills can often be taught, and many will carve out specialisms in time, but qualities such as resilience, communication, problem-solving and adaptability are increasingly valuable in a workplace shaped by constant change.
So with this, companies should think outside the box when building their hiring process – a CV should not be the sole measure of potential, especially for entry-level roles.
Think of incorporating more unique interview processes, such as live tasks that test problem-solving and attitude – allowing you to uncover the qualities that can’t just be AI’d onto a CV.
Rethink pathways into workMany traditional routes into employment were designed for a very different labour market.
Apprenticeships, internships, graduate schemes and work experience programmes remain important, but they need to evolve alongside employer needs and candidate expectations.
Encouragingly, some organisations are already recognising this. Marks & Spencer recently announced plans to create 1,000 paid traineeships for 16- to 24-year-olds across the UK and Ireland, offering structured training, paid experience and clear progression opportunities without requiring a degree.
Of course, not all have the resources of M&S, but this type of programme is scalable and mouldable. This means any business can create visible pathways into work, help young people gain confidence and experience, while developing talent aligned to their future needs.
Help candidates make skills visibleOne of the most overlooked challenges in recruitment is that valuable skills often go unrecognised.
Young people develop desirable capabilities in countless ways, yet often struggle to articulate them in a way that employers can easily identify.
Skills England’s Youth Employability Summit found that employers consistently value skills such as communication, resilience, teamwork and problem-solving, but that these frequently go unrecognised.
The result is that potential is overlooked, opportunities are missed, and the gap gets wider.
Businesses need to move beyond relying solely on qualifications, job titles and years of experience as indicators of capability. Instead, they should help candidates identify and communicate these transferable skills.
Creating a common language around this enables companies to make better hiring decisions. One way to achieve this is by embedding key skills-based questions into the initial application process, so businesses can uncover valuable potential that may otherwise be hidden behind a CV.
Young people develop desirable capabilities in countless ways, yet often struggle to articulate them in a way that employers can easily identify.
When organisations become more effective at recognising skills during the screening stage, everyone benefits – and businesses reduce the risk of overlooking high-potential candidates simply because they lack traditional work experience on paper.
The days of learning a role once and relying on those skills for an entire career are over, and AI alone is changing job requirements faster than many organisations can keep pace with.
Forward-thinking employers are moving away from one-size-fits-all training models and towards continuous, personalised learning cultures.
Skills mapping, personalised development plans and targeted training programmes can help individuals adapt while ensuring organisations remain resilient in the face of change.
Most importantly, organisations need to stop viewing skills development as a cost and start viewing it as an investment, as it could be cheaper in the long run versus outsourcing work to expensive specialists.
Invest in talent nowSkills shortages and youth unemployment are often discussed as separate challenges. They are not.
Closing that gap will of course require government support, education reform and economic growth. But it will also need employers to recognise the role they have to play – and to be bold in their commitment to entry-level talent.
The M&S programme demonstrates that there are organisations already willing to invest in young people and more businesses need to follow suit.
Investing in AI is important – but there needs to be balance. In this climate, it will take bravery, innovation and long-term thinking from business leaders to take a step back from AI and rebuild the pathways that connect young people to opportunity.
The organisations that succeed over the next decade will not be those that simply adopt the latest technology. They will be the ones that continue to invest in people from the ground up and, at the moment, that’s what’s missing.
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The UK jobs market showed signs of resilience in May despite continuing economic and political uncertainty, with the number of active job vacancies rising modestly.
According to the latest Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) Labour Market Tracker, there were 1.62 million active job postings across the UK in May, up 0.8% from April and 8% higher than a year earlier. The figures suggest that demand for workers remains relatively stable despite concerns over global tensions, rising employment costs and changes to labour market regulation.
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However, the number of newly advertised roles fell during the month. New job postings totalled 683,121 in May, down 4% compared with April and 9.2% lower than the same month last year, indicating that employers remain cautious about expanding their workforce.
The REC said the overall level of active vacancies had returned to a similar position to that seen in March, suggesting the labour market may be stabilising after recent fluctuations.
While most parts of the UK recorded growth in active job postings, particularly Northern Ireland, London was the only region to see a decline. Some of the sharpest falls were recorded in central London boroughs, including Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Lambeth. The REC said the two bank holidays in May may have disrupted normal hiring patterns and contributed to the declines.
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Demand increased in some sectors, particularly hospitality, agriculture and retail, but the organisation cautioned that it was too early to draw firm conclusions about summer recruitment trends. It said next month’s figures would provide a clearer indication of whether seasonal hiring is gathering pace.
The REC said the labour market had remained resilient despite ongoing political uncertainty, legislative changes and tensions in the Middle East. Any increase in recruitment activity stemming from a decline in hostilities between the US and Iran was likely to be gradual, it said.
Maxine Bligh, the REC’s chief membership and innovation officer, said: “An Iran-US agreement will ease one of the global pressures holding back hiring and investment. But domestic political uncertainty and looming employment law changes still leave many firms without the confidence they need to accelerate recruitment.
“We are likely to see some growth in the job market, but not at full speed, with many businesses continuing to rely on temporary staff until the outlook becomes clearer.
“The government must calm the cost pressures that are shaping every recruitment decision if it wants firms to invest in hiring.”
Yesterday, Thursday 18 June, figures from the Office for National Statistics found that early job vacancy estimates for March to May suggest a decrease of 19,000 (2.6%) vacancies to 707,000, compared with December to February. This was the lowest level since February to April 2021.
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