Reduced budgets challenging recruitment aims

Recruiting great staff while staying within company budgets is set to remain a challenge for employers this year, new research suggests.

Two thirds of organisations have experienced hiring difficulties, despite the reduction in recruitment activity during 2009 and the burgeoning labour market, the poll by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found.

Some 80% of those surveyed listed attracting and recruiting key staff as their top resourcing objective. However, the biggest recruitment difficulty cited was a lack of specialist skills available from the current talent pool.

“Organisations are facing increased competition to attract and retain the talent needed for their future success, with twice as many telling us that the pool of available talent to hire has fallen,” said the CIPD’s resourcing and talent planning advisor, Claire McCartney.

Half the public sector organisations surveyed said they planned to implement a recruitment freeze, compared with just 16% of private sector firms, while nearly 70% plan to reduce their number of new recruits, compared with 32% in the private sector.

The increased pressure on budgets has led more organisations to focus on in-house talent, with over half the organisations surveyed now using methods to retain rather than recruit new staff. 

McCartney added: “All in all we see great potential within the private sector for talent development, but a rather bleak outlook in the public sector for some time to come.”

© Crimson Business Ltd. 2010