Jobcentre Plus can be a good source of information on local vacancies, as they hold records on what sort of jobs need filling in an area over time. This can help your company to plan for future workforce needs, and give advice about which jobs might be difficult to fill in the future. This section offers advice on these areas. It shows you:
The data used here is from Jobcentre Plus. While this is the best available source of information on vacancies, it isn’t always accurate, as it only shows advertised vacancies in their offices. It does not show jobs that are advertised elsewhere, or job vacancies that are not advertised. Nevertheless, it provides a good rough estimate of where the jobs are.
In 2006, Jobcentre Plus highlighted the following unfilled jobs in the region. The largest numbers of vacancies were in the following sectors:
Sales Assistants and Retail Cashiers – 1,961 advertised vacancies
Elementary Personal Services Occupations – 1,738
Elementary Goods Storage Occupations – 1,544
Transport Drivers And Operatives – 1,209
Administrative Occupations: Records – 1,056
Elementary Cleaning Occupations – 1,013
Healthcare And Related Personal Services - 945
Elementary Security Occupations - 715
Elementary Construction Occupations - 672
This tells you that, if you’re looking to employ people in any of these areas, a lot of other people are recruiting for these jobs – it might be difficult. On the one hand, this might mean that there is a high turnover of jobs – retention is difficult (see Retention section). Alternatively, it might mean that these are areas in which there are a lot of jobs, or that recruitment for these positions tends to be done through Jobcentre Plus, rather than through other means such as newspapers.
What it does not do is prove that these were the hardest vacancies to fill: there may simply be more people doing these jobs. We can tell how difficult it is to fill vacancies by looking at how long jobs are unfilled (see below).
We can see how long vacancies have been left unfilled for a long time by looking at which of these jobs are still advertised after 6 months (or 26 weeks) and over.
Overall, there are less of these vacancies in the East of England than in Great Britain as a whole. 17.6% of vacancies registered at Jobcentre Plus in the East of England were unfilled after 26 weeks, less than the 22.2%, which are unfilled across the country. This implies that jobs may be slightly more difficult to fill in the East of England, although most jobs are filled.
In the East of England the occupations with the largest number of unfilled vacancies for more than 26 weeks (only those occupations with over 100 posted vacancies reported), were:
Artistic and Literary Occupations – 80% of vacancies
Managers and Proprietors in Hospitality and Leisure Services – 59%
Vehicle Trades – 45%
Health Associate Professionals – 37%
Transport Drivers and Operatives – 36%
Healthcare and Related Personal Services – 34%
Process Operatives – 34%
Teaching Professionals – 33%
A note of caution is needed, however, as this does not definitively mean that the vacancies are difficult to fill. Instead, it might mean that Jobcentre Plus is the wrong place to advertise them. It seems unlikely, for example, that Artistic and Literary Occupations are very difficult to fill, just that people looking for these jobs don’t look in the Jobcentre.
What does this mean for your business?
If you’re employing in any of these occupations, you may have trouble. You might want to think of alternatives to these positions. This might include persuading people to move internally, training people to do this work or recruiting more widely.