The Q1 2024 Temp Outlook

“We celebrate that we’re getting people into a full time job, and getting them a permanent position.”

The market for temporary staff has changed significantly since late 2022.

Demand for skilled and semi-skilled labour has increased to a point where it has overtaken supply in many areas.

The low skilled work space has also seen a squeeze on available personnel. Coupled to inflation and significant increases in minimum wage, the environment for hiring employers is difficult.

Comton Group have been supplying temporary staff since 2022, and have seen first hand the rapid changes in the temp market.

Employers are now having to make quicker hires to match market trends, and also convert temporary workers to permanent roles before they complete the standard 12 week probationary period.

The changing face of temp recruitment

Typically companies will have temporary staff for 12-13 weeks before moving them onto a permanent contracts, but during 2023 demand for personnel was extremely high.

Companies who needed to retain their staffing levels have countered this situation by offering candidates permanent roles immediately, or have reduced the time between employing a temporary worker and moving them onto a permanent contract.

We have seen some companies move staff from temporary to permanent positions within days or weeks of initial employment and we see this continuing into 2024.

How Companies are Adapting

Companies partnering with Comton Group are having repeated success employing skilled staff to meet their requirements. This enables these same companies to maintain their staffing levels in key positions and roles.

In 2023 17% of our temporary roles immediately became permanent jobs at offer stage, and more than 40% of our temporary candidates were made permanent in the same year.

Ellie Lake (Temporary Recruitment Consultant) worked with most of our major accounts this year and saw first hand the changes that companies were making to secure employees.

“The temporary market has been very active this year, but not in the same way as we saw in 2022.”

“Companies have had to be more flexible in their approach to hiring and make quicker decisions, particularly so that they don’t lose temporary staff to permanent roles.”

“Semi-Skilled talent has been difficult to retain as businesses outside of the Metal and Engineering sectors have had the same employment issues. This has mean’t companies are not just competing with competitors in their space for these difficult to find employees.”

The rest of the year.

It looks like a case of more of the same in 2024.

The message for companies that employ temporary staff before making permanent hires is this:

You may need to move faster when the right staff walk through your doors.

Competition for personnel is high, so you might need to reconsider how quickly you move a temp onto a perm contract.