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Job market survey points to pick up

10th April 1982, Page 3
10th April 1982
Page 3
Page 3, 10th April 1982 — Job market survey points to pick up
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

transport are improving slightly, survey by Manpower, the tempoincludes Overdrive, the driver ser

IPLOYMENT prospects in road :ording to the latest quarterly y employment agency which e.

ts phone survey of leading ited Kingdom employers Anis that 17 per cent plan to rease their staff over the next ee months, whereas only 13 r cent intended to in the first ee months of the year, )ri the other hand, 13 per cent d they expected to reduce :ir staff by June, whereas the mber in the first quarter of the ar was only 11 per cent. But number planning to mainn existing staff levels has ri from 58 per cent in the second quarter of 1981 to 70 per cent this time.

In the second quarter of last year, Manpower reported that 11 per cent of employers anticipated increasing their staff, and that 28 per cent proposed a reduction.

Manpower says that if the current trends continue, the customary decline in job prospects in the last quarter of the year will be much less severe than last year, and that demand for drivers could rise further in 1983.

The surveys have attracted considerable criticism in the past from the Road Haulage Association, which believed they bore little relation to reality, but an RHA spokesman told CM: "These estimates have been consistently optimistic, but there may be more grounds for optimism than before."

He said that many hauliers' businesses were now showing signs of benefiting from industrial recovery, and added that January's rail strikes had helped push some business into hauliers' hands.

Manpower, in fact, insists that its survey is among the most accurate of its kind, and says that the most recent survey showed that of all companies in all sectors which responded to its phone survey, 80 per cent said their previous forecasts had been correct. Further signs that transport could grow come from the fact that the public building sector anticipates that 21 per cent of its employers will increase staff, and that 21 per cent of private building companies will increase theirs.

The biggest increase in all industries — 24 per cent — was recorded in Yorkshire and Humberside, with West Central Scotland employers coming close behind with 23 per ent of employers anticipating increases in their workforces. The fewer employers anticipating an increase are in relatively well off Aberdeen and London, where only nine per cent expect to have more staff.

South-west England employers are the most pessimistic. There, 29 per cent expect to reduce staff. In East Anglia, only 11 per cent expect to cut staff.

Tags

Organisations: Road Haulage Association
People: Overdrive
Locations: Aberdeen, London

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