The Good, the Bad and the Economy

You would need to have been living under a rock to not know that 2019 has been a super-competitive employment market. Overall, unemployment is at its lowest rate since the second quarter of 2008. Immigration rules have been tightened, further reducing the candidate pool, and putting pressure on employers.

You can hardly listen to the business news these days without hearing the dire results of the latest business confidence survey. As employers, confidence is important – hiring someone is a big commitment and you need to feel confident about the future of your business to do that.

But does confidence about the economy – or lack of it – translate to confidence about your own business?

For the latest edition of our accounting and finance salary guide, ‘What the Buck!’, we asked employers what their views were on the current economic environment and business outlook, and how that affected their intention to hire.

76% thought the economic outlook was average or not good (including massively concerned) – this is aligned with current public sentiment.

Interestingly, of those who were pessimistic, 65% still intend to hire. (We are seeing this on a daily basis – we have never had so many accounting and finance vacancies!).

Despite the pessimistic outlook, the finance function is evolving fast and demand for the best talent is very, very strong. Top talent is being snapped up fast, as we are seeing pay rises and counter offers from organisations trying to attract and retain the best talent.

34.5% of employers said it’s harder to find high quality accounting and finance professionals, up from 26.9% in 2018. So expect attraction and retention to remain one of the key business issues to keep leaders awake for the next year.

**These juicy morsels of market intelligence are some of the many treats awaiting you in ‘What The Buck!’ – the (unofficial and slightly cheeky) most informative, fun and interesting salary guide for the best hiring managers in the accounting and finance industry.