Evidence library

CIPD's quarterly Labour Market Outlook provides labour market data and analysis on employers’ recruitment, redundancy and pay intentions.

Figures mainly based on online YouGov survey. The total sample size was 2,000 senior HR professionals and decision-makers in the UK. . The figures have been weighted and are representative of UK employment by organisation size and sector.

Key findings 53 per cent of UK voluntary organisations have “hard-to-fill” vacancies, compared with 47% of UK employers overall.

The top response planned by employers to recruitment and retention difficulties is to upskill existing staff (41%), followed by advertising more jobs as being flexible (35%). Raising wages comes in third at 29%.

The proportion of employers planning on making redundancies is below pre-pandemic levels at 13%. Employers’ focus on retention and training demonstrates their desire to get more from their existing employers in the face of recruitment challenges.

Expected pay awards in the private sector have risen to a median of 4%, the highest dating back to 2012. But altogether across the private, public and third/voluntary sectors, employers expect median basic pay awards to remain at 3%.