State of the Market

[ladymuck]

The official unemployment rate at the moment is 4.3% which is historically still low.
Nearly all stock markets are doing well and near all time highs (except the FTSE 250).
House prices are doing ok.
...

Yeah, my IFA called me last week to have the annual check in about my pension and he said that I was getting at 12% return at the moment. We chatted about the market and he said he has other contractor clients who have been out for 18 months or more. No-one seems to have a clear view on what the problem is.

[jamesbrown]

Employment component of the PMI dropped to 45.8 today from 48.9 in November, the largest drop since the pandemic or since 2009 if the pandemic is excluded (anything below 50 is contraction), so the general employment situation, post-Budget, is pretty dire.

[jamesbrown]

No-one seems to have a clear view on what the problem is.

Probably because there isn't one problem. There are a bunch of global factors, including some long-term ones that are devaluing IT contracting, as well as some UK-centric problems with IR35 reform and the recent budget. It's a slow(-ish) puncture.

[SussexSeagull]

I honestly don't think it's coming back.

IT is an affordable luxury for most companies, to help improve efficiency. When companies are efficient there is no need to invest, when the returns are 5/10yrs down the line.

Software development is no longer seen as difficult, as it is not. It's seen as another trade such as and similar to brick layering, it can be outsourced quite easily to a consultancy, off-shore or to a freshy.

Unless we get another .dot com boom, we are dead.

Software Development done well should be easy but it rarely goes that way because everyone thinks it is easy. It should be a systematic process with the correct resources allocated but that doesn’t seem to happen much anymore.

i left my last couple of contracts before the work was finished. The second to last one has been going for years before I turned up and is still rumbling on now. My last one ran out of money to pay me before the work finished.

To me the problem is project governance - not management, it goes higher than that - and too much churn of people and changing of mind.

[Cookielove]

It is beyond grim...thought I may have a few weeks work that didn't even happen...

Just nothing doing even if you are prepared to look at 50% rate drop....

[Bluenose]

Employment component of the PMI dropped to 45.8 today from 48.9 in November, the largest drop since the pandemic or since 2009 if the pandemic is excluded (anything below 50 is contraction), so the general employment situation, post-Budget, is pretty dire.

https://www.adzuna.co.uk/job-market-report/#section-8

[SchumiStars]

Just had a call with an agent who thought he had something for us and we were in the running for. Turns out client hired from another agency and he was disappointed.

5 days onsite, surrey, inside, £500pd, SC cleared. Previously that would have been a 750 role.

[BlueSharp]

So never expected this, client co can't find anyone at the low rates they want in the UK so have struck a partnership with one of the Indian offshore agencies. Turns out they can't even get CVs from the agencyat such awful rates and their wish list of requirements! This must truly be the bottom!!

[dsc]

So never expected this, client co can't find anyone at the low rates they want in the UK so have struck a partnership with one of the Indian offshore agencies. Turns out they can't even get CVs from the agencyat such awful rates and their wish list of requirements! This must truly be the bottom!!

Wow, any ideas how ridiculously their rates are? or how ridiculous the wish list of reqs is?

[SchumiStars]

The wider impact of this is that the recruitment agencies would be closing. Less tax being paid tomthe government etc.

Recruitment agents are usually the grads who didn't get any sort of grad job of uni. The Desmond's and 3rd classes. Not sure what kind of job they could find ATM, with seemingly no uptake from companies.

I can't imagine this situation changing in the next 12mths tbh. Not sure how people are finding contracts or getting renewed in this market.