{"id":58558,"date":"2025-08-11T06:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T06:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/58558\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T06:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T06:25:09","slug":"jobs-market-cools-further-over-economic-concerns-and-rising-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/58558\/","title":{"rendered":"Jobs market cools further over economic concerns and rising costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Photo Philip Toscano\/PA Wire<\/p>\n

Hiring activity fell further in July as the UK jobs market was weighed down by concerns over the economic outlook and increased labour costs, according to new figures.<\/p>\n

Growth in starting salaries also slowed to its lowest level for more than four years as firms tightened their recruitment budgets.<\/p>\n

The monthly KPMG and REC report on jobs showed a \u201cfurther steep decline\u201d in permanent staff appointment in July.<\/p>\n

The influential report showed a reading of 40.0 for permanent placements in the UK, improving slightly from 39.1 in June.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Decline<\/p>\n

However, any figure below 50 represents decline in the job market, with levels over 50 showing growth. The data therefore indicated another month of contraction.<\/p>\n

Jon Holt, group chief executive and UK senior partner at KPMG, said: \u201cThe labour market cooled in July as chief execs held back from increasing their recruitment budgets.<\/p>\n

\u201cEconomic uncertainty, the complexities of AI adoption and global headwinds are all weighing on business planning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recruiters frequently said in the survey that weak confidence about the economy and \u201cincreases in payroll costs\u201d were factors causing the drop in hiring.<\/p>\n

It pointed towards a \u201csteady\u201d jobs market in certain sectors, such as engineering, but flagged a continued drop in hiring in retail and hospitality.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Inflation<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, starting salary inflation slowed for a second month in a row to its lowest level since March 2021.<\/p>\n

The data comes after the Bank of England pointed towards slowing wage growth over the coming year while the unemployment rate could tick higher.<\/p>\n

Kate Shoesmith, REC deputy chief executive, said: \u201cThere is a path to jobs market recovery \u2013 but it will take co-ordinated action from Government, the Bank of England and businesses to maximise on any potential upswing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith starting salaries and temporary pay rising only modestly, it was right to cut interest rates last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore action like this, to stabilise the business cost-base, is what will support growth and boost the jobs market this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Support our Nation today<\/p>\n

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\n independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by
\n the people of Wales.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo Philip Toscano\/PA Wire Hiring activity fell further in July as the UK jobs market was weighed down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[84,467,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-58558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-markets","tag-business","tag-markets","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}