"Healthcare Staff Shortage Drives Near-Record Job Vacancies"
"Healthcare Staff Shortage Drives Near-Record Job Vacancies"
According to analysis conducted by the ONS, the healthcare sector represents over 10% of job advertisements posted online in December.
Job vacancies in the UK have reached nearly record levels, largely driven by the shortage of nurses, carers, and other healthcare staff, according to analysis conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In December, healthcare accounted for over one in ten job vacancies posted online, making it the sector with the highest share of adverts across almost 90% of local authorities in the UK.
The refusal of Rishi Sunak's government to offer a larger pay rise to NHS workers has increased pressure on the government. This has raised the prospect of continued strike action amid the increasingly bitter dispute over pay and staff shortages.
The ONS estimates that there were nearly 1.5 million open job adverts on average each day in December, with healthcare accounting for almost 190,000 or 12.7% of all vacancies. Within the healthcare sector, the two occupations with the highest number of jobs adverts nationwide were support workers (31,870 adverts) and nurses (21,170 adverts).
The second largest share of job vacancies in December was in the information and communication technology (ICT) professions, driven by recruitment adverts for software engineers. Meanwhile, production and warehouse management jobs held the largest share in nearly 2% of local authorities, primarily in the "golden logistics triangle" in the Midlands and Thurrock in Essex.
London dominated job adverts in arts, culture, media, and communication, marketing, and public relations, representing over a third of all jobs advertised in these professions across the UK.
While the government has expressed concern about the high number of vacancies in the UK, its focus has primarily been on the private sector. The near-record vacancy figures coincide with annual pay growth in the private sector outpacing that in the public sector, raising concerns about widespread staff shortages in the NHS, social care, education, and policing.
Although job vacancies across the economy have slightly decreased in recent months to just under 1.2 million, they remain significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels. The ONS noted that the increased share of healthcare adverts reflects a longer-term trend in demand, as the sector's share of online job adverts has consistently increased since 2017, even when accounting for the rise in demand during the height of the pandemic.
Business groups warn that labour shortages are impeding economic growth, with many workers leaving the UK workforce since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and stricter post-Brexit rules making it more challenging to recruit EU workers.
[Source: The Guardians]
