SAP skills in short supply: REC & KPMG

SAP contractors were in short supply last month, according to the latest jobs report from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG.

The monthly report surveys 400 UK recruitment consultants and asks them to name specific skills that are in short supply.

Overall, the report found that IT and computing jobs, as well as engineering and construction jobs, were the most sought-after, although the demand for staff across all sectors grew at the slowest pace in eight months.

The report uses a figure to represent demand in each job sector, and a figure above 50 indicates an increase in demand on the previous month.  In July, the figure for permanent IT jobs was 60.3, a slightly higher rate of growth than the figure the same time last year (59.3).

For temporary IT jobs, the demand had fallen compared with last year, from 56.5 in July 2010 to 55.5 last month.

Kevin Green, chief executive of the REC, said that while the jobs market was continuing to perform well, employers are still not hiring enough staff to ensure long-term stability.”The rate of jobs growth in July quickened from June’s figures. These figures show that the jobs market is continuing to perform well despite general weakness in the UK economy. We have now had two years of continuous growth and employers are still continuing to hire staff, albeit not in the numbers needed to radically reduce unemployment.”

Bernard Brown, partner and head of business services at KPMG, added, “Growth is still much slower than at the beginning of the year.

“Employers across all sectors remain cautious about hiring new staff. The key reason for this is the uncertain economic outlook with domestic demand being weighed down by government cutbacks and falling real wages, while exports and investment are not strong enough to take up the slack,” he concluded.