Are opportunities increasing for freelancers?

Last month, 15 out of the 21 industry sectors monitored by Monster show increased growth on last year. Transport, post and logistics was up 36% and has been the strongest performing industry for the last six months. Production, manufacturing, repair and maintenance was up 35% year-on-year, although the sector remained unchanged last month, whilst engineering was the third best performing sector with year-on-year growth of 33%.

Monster spokesperson, Michael Gentle, said the index shows that UK recruitment trends are steadily improving.

As would probably be expected, the public sector, defence and community sector came at the bottom of the growth index with a year-on-year decline in job opportunities of 15%. The legal sector registered a decline of 12%, whilst opportunities in banking, finance and insurance were down by 6%.

Meanwhile, the CIPS has warned that the recovery is still weak despite recent positive market forecasts. Andrew Coulters, the CIPS' director of business solutions, says activity has declined and this has led to job losses.

The PMI's dropped to 49.1 points and this contraction has sparked concerns throughout manufacturing, especially as forecasters had predicted better results. Coulters claims that manufacturing activity has tailed off because of the weak domestic market. Employment has been impacted and the sector has seen the first job losses in more than a year. Disruption to the supply chain has eased off but the recovery still looks relatively fragile.

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