The number of jobs offered by recruitment agencies could increase as a result of legislation introduced to encourage economic growth at new businesses.

Startups have been urged to ensure they take full advantage of a payment 'holiday' scheme that allows them to temporarily forego a percentage of National Insurance Contributions (NICs), Recruiter.co.uk reports.

According to Liz Longman, UK director of The Employment Agencies Movement, new businesses set up outside of London, the south-east and east of England, are eligible to save up to £5,000 in NICs for the first ten employees they hire during year one of their operations.

The move, designed to encourage economic growth and stimulate new jobs across the rest of the UK, was announced by the coalition government in its June Budget.

Speaking to the recruitment website, Ms Longman explained that the rules offer new businesses a great opportunity to recruit staff members without feeling the full effect of NICs.

"Client businesses setting up will offer more business to the [recruitment] sector," she told the news provider.

"This is a great opportunity for agencies to offer their services to a growing business attracting the right talent."

National Insurance is deducted from employees' earnings, but employers are expected to pay a percentage of the wage in Class 1 contributions and may also be eligible for Class 1A special-rate NICs if staff are given certain tax-deductable benefits, such as a company car.

Currently, employers are expected to pay 12.8 per cent on earnings above £110 per week to HM Revenue & Customs.

Meanwhile, employers will soon be expected to offer more job opportunities to single parents as a result of government legislation that will require people whose children are seven years or older to look for work from October.

In 2011, this threshold will be lowered to five years of age, in a move that could swell the UK workforce by a quarter of a million people.

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Seven out of ten people are changing their career development plan as they believe retirement traditions will change in the future, according to a new poll.

Out of the 1,000 people surveyed by ComRes for BBC's Newsnight, nearly-three quarters expressed worries about not having the money they needed to live their retirement comfortably.

The survey comes after July's announcement that the Government will phase out the Default Retirement Age from April next year as people live longer and healthier lives.

Jeremy Black, professor of history at Exeter University, told the BBC that the tradition of younger generations having more may be about to change.

"The relationship between the generations has been transformed. Whereas it used to be the case that up and coming generations tended to be more prosperous then their parents, now we're going to be in reverse," he told the broadcaster.

The Default Retirement Age currently allows companies to end employment of those aged over 65, but this will slowly be phased out until October next year when it will cease to exist.

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Renovation of a derelict factory site in Hull could create regeneration jobs after plans to create a business park on the land were put forward.

Building of the new Marfleet Environmental Technology Park could start in December if plans are approved and will refurbish an old Humbrol factory that remains there today.

East Yorkshire company iSpace are putting forward the proposals, and its director Paul Dixon says that there has been plenty of interest shown in the development.

"We have got a large international company wanting to bring a manufacturing and distribution unit there and we are at the very advanced stages of agreeing a long lease with them," he said.

Mr Dixon added that Hull's "great labour pool" would be ideal for companies to hire from.

The Humbrol factory used to be home of Airfix model kits, but went into administration in 2006. Hornby re-launched the brand later that year.

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Bosses who openly and fairly deal with staff members, including those in IT jobs, are likely to "reap the rewards" in the long run.

That is according to Acas, which aims to improve organisations and working life through better employment relations, which suggests that it is up to both employees and staff to approach cost-cutting flexibly.

John Taylor, the group's chief executive, said that there were now more employers than ever before looking at alternatives to redundancies and only getting rid of staff members as a last resort.

Maintaining staff, he says, is ultimately beneficial in the long run.

Mr Taylor states: "In the long term those organisations which have dealt with their workforce in a fair, open, transparent kind of way, will reap the rewards in terms of less labour turnover [and] less absenteeism as and when the economy starts to recover."

According to Management Today magazine and the Institute of Leadership and Management businesses that have taken a more measured response to the recession, such as flexible working and budget cuts instead of redundancies, have seen trust in their senior management rise.
 

Nearly half of organisations in Europe are to increase their spending on external services in the future in a move that could create more IT jobs.

A survey conducted by research analysts Gartner showed that out of the 206 organisations asked in the first quarter of this year, 40 per cent will increase their expenditure on external IT services.

Though the survey was conducted before the Greek financial crisis, Claudio Da Rold, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, said that the "cautious expectation of growth will continue in Europe beyond 2010".

"Regardless of the future direction of the economy, European businesses and their service providers need to optimise their multisourced environments, while increasingly adopting industrialized IT services," he said.

Earlier this week, a survey into the manufacturing sector showed growth in exports as Britain tries to claw its way out of economic problems.

Figures from manufacturing organisation EEF and accountants BDO LLP showed that exports achieved a balance of +30 per cent because of increased interest from Europe.

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The number of National Healthcare Service employees increased in the first three months of this year after positions, such as NHS interim jobs, were filled.

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics yesterday showed that there was increased NHS employment in every part of the UK in the first quarter of 2010, with seven per cent rises in the east midlands and the east of England.

The report also shows that the number of public sector workers increased across all areas with Northern Ireland witnessing a 30.5 per cent increase and Wales having a 27.5 per cent rise.

Fiona McEvoy, from the Tax Payers' Alliance, told the Daily Mail that the increase is hindering the economic recovery.

"The escalating size of the public sector has been hugely detrimental to economic growth and created a fiscal crisis," she said.

"The legacy of this excessive recruitment threatens to cost taxpayers a fortune for many years to come."

In June, the Office for Budget Responsibility warned that up to 600,000 public sector jobs could go in future cuts.

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Job specifications remain in limbo after a new report revealed that only one in five employers has made moves to scrap the retirement age.

Additionally, 23 per cent intend to retain a retirement age for all jobs and another fifth will keep a retirement age for some positions and not others, legal firm Shoosmiths found in a survey of 115 businesses.

With concerns over staff reactions, including a loss of motivation and negative impact on young workers, Shoosmiths' partner and head of employment Kevin McCavish said the retirement age may be here for longer still.

"While this might suggest that next year’s legal changes will have a significant practical impact on employers and employees, the results reveal that the retirement age may not be pensioned off as quickly as predicted," he said.

In July it was announced that from April next year regulations that allow employers to retire workers who reach 65 will be phased out over six months.

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Santander is set to create 6,000 new finance jobs over the next two years after coming under fire for its poor customer service.

The Financial Times reports that the Spanish banking organisation will hire 600 people over the coming months, and more thereafter, to improve customer relations after it was said to have the highest number of complaints in ratio to the number of accounts it has.

Simon Maughan, an analyst at MF Global, told the newspaper that banks are starting to realise the importance of client service.

"Banks…realise they need to improve customer service if they are going to make the most of their existing business," he said.

It was also announced today that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) will recruit more than 800 new members of staff after its turnover rose by four per cent to £2.3 billion over the last year.

PwC's chairman and senior partner Ian Powell said that despite a difficult year, the company had delivered "a good, solid set of results".

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The immediate impact of the announcement around budget cuts has already been evidenced by permanent staff recruitment freezes. In addition to this, pay has been frozen for those on salaries of £21,000pa. plus. A number of projects have been scrapped with immediate effect, resulting in a drop in the number of interim procurement staff working within government departments. Recently the government has also started applying pressure on suppliers to reduce their prices.

As on-going projects eventually succumb to the Chancellor’s axe, we anticipate that there will be further reductions in the numbers of contractors working in government departments. The question is, with procurement contractors central to reducing spend and the number of interims working being reduced, how will government departments continue to make cuts?

Much has been made of the public sectors’ over reliance on contractors during the past few years. Many have pointed out that, once a project is completed and contractors leave, the level of commercial skills amongst procurement professionals within departments drops with the expertise walking out of the building. The attraction of using interim and consulting staff – instant expertise and experience – is also one of the main disadvantages as, all too often, a skills gap is the only legacy. Most instances where interims and consultants are used are simply wasted as the opportunity to up skill permanent staff is lost.

To remedy this, procurement will need to operate on a much more strategic level. When government departments are discussing how and where to cut costs they need to look more towards long term objectives. At the moment the public sector as a whole appears to be a much more reactive, operational and short term in its approach to leveraging procurement to cut costs.

Highly focussed category management will also help to not only reduce costs but also up skill procurement professionals in the public sector. By using more specialist knowledge within a specific category or commodity, better decisions will be reached on how to deliver efficiencies and savings.

If government departments collaborated better and joined all buying within a specialism they would be able to drive economies of scale better to increase their buying power and rationalise the number of suppliers that they engage with.

However much central government is able to change the way it buys goods and services one thing holds firm: while contractors and consultants do bring benefits in the short term there needs to be a guaranteed legacy in order to up skill permanent procurement staff. By ensuring that the skills and expertise hired in the short term are passed to its own staff, government departments will be able to strategically procure for central government in an efficient manner.

The original review conducted by Lord Gershon in 2004-5 talked about the use of shared services, and this is more prevalent than ever, with it being central to the new Government’s ideas on efficiency savings. The Efficiency Reform Group, under Francis Maude’s stewardship, is continuing this with directives about mandating centralisation and shared services.

…cost benefits that can be realised include between 20-30% savings on back office functions

Typically, cost benefits that can be realised include between 20-30% savings on back office functions. Shared Services are a consideration for smaller agencies of Government departments as they offer cost & efficiency but many are still concerned about the break in service quality that may arise from a shared service implementation.

The impact of shared services has been met with mixed experiences in the public sector previously, with some high profile departments struggling to balance the need for efficiency with an expectation on service delivery that was required. This is a fine balance, with a desire to reduce duplication across departments, their executive agencies and NDPBs providing an increased opportunity, but increased workload, for existing SSCs and their employees. The impact of any collaboration is a reduction in workforce, with resulting redundancies, particularly given the geographical spread of existing shared services.

To achieve a successful implementation communication is the key – clarity and consistency from all stakeholders being imperative. The task of systems integration, identifying processes and protocols, and deciding what is and isn’t included in the service delivery is no easy task. What seems like a straight forward decision has major implications and needs thought and time. The question is, will Whitehall wait and take the necessary steps to ensure success?

So what does this mean for employees who may need to or are interested in a move into a shared service? The key will be presenting yourself in the best possible light, the balance of being technically very strong in your role, with the ability to build relationships and engage stakeholders. Working in a shared service will change the relationship from colleagues in an organisation to client and supplier of a service, and as in all these relationships, communication is the link that pulls the chain together. To make yourself attractive, think about your network, who your relationships are with, and highlight your transferable skills.