Government and campaigns
And just like that, Christmas is (almost) here, and 2023 is very nearly behind us. As the end of the year approaches, we can take stock, looking back at what we’ve achieved in 2023. It's certainly been another busy one, but our commitment to getting member's voices heard at every level of government has resulted in some great success and increased parliamentary engagement. Not least, we started the year as we meant to go on, launching our award-winning Overcoming Shortages in Parliament and building on that success month on month.
Before we "sign off", we wanted to take the opportunity to wish each and every one of our members a very happy Christmas, and best wishes for 2024!
Here's a look back at some of our work from 2023:
General Election preparation: This year, we’ve had extensive engagement with both government ministers and officials, and with the Shadow Labour teams. This has ranged from meetings in Number 10 and HM Treasury, to hosting events with the Shadow Deputy Leader, Shadow Business Secretary, Employment and Business Ministers. We were out in force at both Labour and Conservative party conferences, talking about green jobs and the labour market transition, and how to get public sector procurement right. As well as influencing government policy on things like holiday pay, umbrella company regulation, childcare provision, and working rights, we’ve also fed into Labour’s National Policy Forum process and shared our views on things like Apprenticeship Levy reform, joined up working, better enforcement, and the value of temporary work for economic growth.
Regulation and enforcement: We’ve seen big moves this year, driven by the REC with the consultation on the regulation of umbrella companies and the introduction of new legislation for 2024 on holiday pay - two big wins for our campaigns work. Throughout the year we’ve engaged with the Department for Business and Trade and met with relevant ministers to push the importance of these reforms, and it’s great to see the government listening. Still more to do, particularly on holiday pay, but it's been great to get some much-needed clarity for our members.
Predictable Working: Throughout 2023, the REC kept tabs on the progress of the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill, which is now coming into effect in 2024 as the Workers (Predictable Terms & Conditions) Act 2023. Thanks to work from the REC, the scope of this bill was limited to workers with 26 week’s service (rather than the originally proposed 12) and we have been involved in conversations with ACAS and the Department for Business and Trade to ensure the regulations introduced for this are practical and workable in real life business scenarios. More to come next year!
Devolved activity: In 2023, we increased our engagement across the devolved nations, building relationships with ministers and civil servants, and getting them in front of members. In Scotland, we had the Minister for Just Transition, Employment and Fair Work come along to one of our CEO spotlights to hear firsthand from Scottish members about how to improve things like the Flexible Workforce Development Fund, careers advice and skills pathways, and how to prepare for the Net Zero transition. In Wales, we wrote to the Minister for the Economy about expanding Job Growth Wales+ beyond just 16–18-year-olds (as had been the case previously) and received a positive response about the scheme extending to 19-year-olds starts, helping engage more young people in the labour market and fill crucial shortages. In Northern Ireland, we’ve been engaging with the Northern Ireland Employment Agencies Standards Inspectorate and invited them to meet with members at a CEO spotlight. Following changes to Certificates of Application, we also pushed the Home Office to provide proper employer guidance on navigating the changes and asked for an extension to avoid a cliff edge for many of the workers (and employers) impacted by the changes.
EDI Summit: Aware of our members asking for more guidance around how to better embed Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) into their work, we hosted our first-ever EDI Summit in November! We discussed inclusive recruitment strategies and the best ways to foster inclusive hiring practices. Alongside the summit, we launched our Guide to Inclusive Recruitment, which helps members at all levels of their EDI journeys better embed EDI principles in the work that they do.
Immigration: Earlier this year, the REC fed into the Migration Advisory Committee's Shortage Occupation List (SOL) process, recommending that 10 occupations across three sectors be added to the SOL. It was good to see some of our recommendations taken up by the MAC, particularly around retrofitters and keeping construction trades on the SOL. In addition, we issued a robust response to the Home Office announcements around increased salary thresholds and changes to dependents. We've gathered member case studies to demonstrate the impact these changes will have and requested a roundtable for REC members. Plenty more to come in this space in 2024.
Drivers and Logistics: In its Future of Freight strategy, the Department for Transport announced a Future of Freight Council, a cross-government and industry forum to tackle issues affecting the sector. As a result of our ongoing work in this sector, the REC was invited to sit on the People and Skills Delivery Group, which focuses on long-term workforce planning, attraction and retention strategies, and tackling shortages in the sector. Following the insights we shared with this group, the REC was invited to participate in the wider Future of Freight Council as well, demonstrating the value and importance of REC member data. This work will continue throughout 2024.
Healthcare: The often negative rhetoric around agency work in the NHS has been persistent throughout 2023. NHS England finally announced its long-term workforce plan in June 2023 to address labour and skills shortages facing the NHS. We will continue to advocate that the current NHS workforce strategy doesn’t account for or recognise the expertise and labour market insight that recruiters bring in addressing shortages. There was also plenty of discussion this year regarding the framework rates in the sector, which have not increased since 2016. REC has pushed for a review into the rates and has also sought legal advice on the lawfulness of the current system.
Social Care: Earlier this year, the Department for Education (DfE) announced large-scale changes to the agency workforce in child social care. REC has been at the forefront of engaging with the DfE on this issue, liaising regularly with senior civil servants and members to ensure the implementation of these rules is as non-disruptive as possible. The work is not done here though, and REC will continue to work with all parties in 2024, keeping this firmly on our radar.
REC has been prominent in the media in the past fortnight. The media reported on our successful REC Awards 2023 in which a recruiter’s success at helping people in an area with few opportunities to gain STEM skills and another’s work to get Ukrainians into work were among the winners. Elsewhere, our expert opinion on the government’s announcement on migration and work – in which we expressed concern about one rule for business, another for the public sector in health and care – was in demand in the media (such as in the Financial Times and The Daily Telegraph). A look back at 2023 shows that REC appeared as expert voices on all the major UK broadcasters and in all the major national newspapers. We would also like to thank our partners in the trade media for reporting on our work and views on the labour market this year as we have sought to make sense of acute labour and skills shortages in the economy that risk holding back economic growth next year.
We published our annual Recruitment Industry Status report (RISR) which found that a staggering 25.7 million temporary and contract placements were made in 2022 (compared to 22.4 million in 2021) and separately 702,950 permanent placements made in 2022, which represented a significant rise on 2021’s figure of 540,000, as the permanent market took off more slowly after the pandemic. The recruitment industry’s direct contribution to the economy (GVA) amounted to an estimated £41.3 billion in 2022 and grew by 5.9% between 2021 and 2022, which represents a strong performance compared to other sectors. This Friday (15 December), we will be publishing our final Labour Market Tracker of the year, looking at job postings data across the UK, providing headline figures for the whole country, plus the biggest changes in postings for occupations and local areas.
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