Healthcare and Medicine

17-Sep-2008

The Monster Employment Index has recorded four consecutive months of growth in the sector taking the industry to a record high of 230 index points, representing an industry growth of 23% in the last year alone.

Richard Smith, operations director of the health and social care division of Beresford Blake Thomas (BBT), told Recruiterthe company is benefiting from the increase in demand with its highest ever number of temporary staff working in the sector. “In any week we have over 2,000 temps out working in the UK and that’s increasing week-on-week,” he said.

However, the difficulty for healthcare recruiters is finding enough qualified nurses. The Nurses and Midwifery Council (NMC), which registers every nurse working in the UK, reports the number of nurses practising has increased by only 0.3% over the last year, from 642,751 to 645,034.

John Court, managing director at Routes Healthcare, told Recruiter it is impossible to find enough staff for every vacancy.

“The lost unfilled ratio [the percentage of roles the company cannot find staff for] has hovered between 25% and 35% for the last 20 years, which indicates the demand for healthcare professionals is consistently growing,” he explained.

There has also been an increase in the number of UK nurses leaving to work abroad. The NMC recorded a steady increase in the number of UK nurses taking positions in other countries, from 10,087 in 2006 to 11,171 in 2007.

Vicky Scott, operations manager of medical jobs board Jobs4Medical.co.uk, told Recruiter: “Nurses are looking to leave the country, 55% of our overseas positions are for nurses and we are getting a lot more demand from Australia.”

In a candidate-short marketplace recruiters are having to use a wide variety of methods to source candidates. Carrot Pharma, which recruits medical communications, market research, advertising, public relations and marketing staff for the pharmaceutical industry, has increased its reliance on networking, both online and at industry events.

Though the types of niche roles Carrot Pharma are placing are still in demand, the pharmaceutical industry as a whole is suffering from overseas competition in drug development. Dianne Ward, head of scientific recruitment at Pulse Staffing, told Recruiter:“The pharmaceutical market is taking a hammering. The length of time it takes to bring a drug to market, coupled with fewer products and rising costs, have resulted in some organisations off-shoring business to places like India, while others have moved part of their operations back to the US.”

Niche providers such as Carrot Pharma do well in the marketplace because they concentrate on highly-skilled job roles with small candidate pools, who are attracted to working on a freelance basis.

The economic downturn may provide further respite for the sector. Smith told Recruiter that BBT has experienced an increased number of candidates looking for part-time work as candidates attempt to supplement their income.

Salaries in the healthcare sector have remained stable. According to Reed.co.uk’s salary index, the average salary (for both temporary and permanent positions) in the sector advertised online has increased slightly from £35k to £37k in England over the past year.

Smith believes the lack of movement in salary is due to managed services providers, which dictate the prices agencies can charge. “Salaries have stayed fairly stable because of the influence of managed service providers. Some are better than others — it’s a mixed bag,” he said, adding that the biggest problem is the number of debtor days.

christopher.goodfellow@centaur.co.uk