If you’re in the market for a new job, September may bring some good news.
While this year has seen an uptick in layoffs compared to 2022, those rates have been falling steadily since April and saw their lowest point in 11 months in July, according to recent data released by executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That’s partly why it’s no surprise that “September Surge” has recently been trending on TikTok.
Becca Morris, Managing Director of Benchmark Recruitment, a renowned Sheffield-based recruitment agency, believes that our region should also benefit from the traditional Autumn uptick in recruitment.
She explained: “In August, typically, decision makers go on holiday, or they can’t get their boards together. So, decisions become really slow, and everyone has this kind of perception that there’s no jobs in summer, which kind of means there isn’t.
“Come September, it’s like normality sets in again. Kids are back at school, whether you’ve got them or not, and you just kind of get into that autumn term mindset.”
“Businesses also get into the mindset of what they want their team to look like by the end of the year. For me, the last quarter of the year has always been my busiest and it really starts ramping up in September.”
Becca also believes there are more general reasons for optimism. She said: “Inflation has finally started to come down, petrol prices have come down, interest rates and even mortgage rates came down last month. The energy price news that we had last week; I think that is what everyone needs to know before we go into winter.
“Because of all these factors, last year, everyone was super cautious, and that’s completely understandable. But I had a conversation with a client last week who had a meeting with her businesses’ bank, and they told them that interest rates next year will come down and everything’s going to be fine, basically.
“I think people perhaps need to hear that more, because what we absorb is all the negative instead of the positive.
“Hopefully, all that will give employers confidence to start recruiting again.”
September 2nd marks the one-year anniversary of Becca taking on Benchmark and as if to emphasise the health of the recruitment industry, Benchmark has made profit in each month across that year, something which Becca is rightly very proud of.
She attributes some of that success to her shift in working-style and a move away from 12-hour days, allowing her to focus on what’s important and avoid burnout.
