Demand for health workers at an ‘all-time high’

The demand for nursing, medical and care staff has reached an all-time high over the past year acording to a new report published today.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) said health workers were in big demand in January with the report stating they were “the most in-demand permanent staff category” during last month.

Kevin Green, REC chief executive, said: “It’s good to see the significant increase in permanent vacancies in the health and care sector.

“There are a variety of factors that could be contributing to this spike including February being a start date for doctors’ contracts, increased political pressure on trusts to use permanent rather than temporary staff and new guidance on safer staffing ratios.

“It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next few months as we know candidates to fill nursing and care jobs are already hard to find.”

In general terms, vacancies for permanent and temporary jobs continued to increase rapidly as confident businesses expand their workforces.

January saw more people secure a new permanent job via a recruiter than in December and the decline in the number of available candidates means competition for skilled workers is driving up pay.

With record levels of employment and falling inflation, this means many workers should feel better off in 2015 than they did in 2014.