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REC CEO responds to PM's Jobs Summit announcement

The REC took part in Gordon Brown’s jobs summit this week.  This high profile meeting with business and union leaders focussed on measures  to safeguard jobs  during the downturn, including plans to help the long-term unemployed through an incentive for employers to take on and train those who have been out of the labour market for six months. 

Commenting after the Prime Minister's announcement,  Kevin Green said: 

“The key is to ensure that broad employment strategies actually work on the ground and at a local level. Within this context, the active cooperation between job centres and private sector recruitment agencies will be crucial to ensure that job seekers get the right support and guidance.  This is especially true at the high end where specialised recruiters have expert knowledge of their sector and can move people into appropriate new work opportunities quickly.

 “Incentivising employers to take on longer-term unemployed may act as a prompt but the key is to ensure that we limit the number of jobseekers falling into that category in the first place - for example, by making the most of the UK's flexible labour market and the opportunities that temporary, contract and interim work can provide. The preventative measure of helping new job seekers access short-term opportunities is as important as the ”cure" of incentivising the recruitment of the long-term unemployed. 

“We must protect the crucial 'outlet' that temporary and contract work can provide by ensuring the new European rules on agency work are implemented with the least burden to business and as late as possible.   Proposed increases in the taxation of temporary work services in some key sectors also needs to be reviewed. This would essentially amount to a tax on jobs costing employers in affected sectors, including financial, healthcare and charity; approximately 390 million at a time when we can least afford it.  We have already heard from the CBI today that further redundancies in the financial services sector are expected, the Government should not make this situation worse with negative tax changes at a time when it is pumping millions into incentivising employment.”