Firstly, wishing you a very Happy Easter. It’s by far my favourite holiday of the year, made better by winter turning to spring. It’s also a good time to reflect on Q1.

I’ve been quite vocal about 2023 being a difficult year for the financial services industry. However, after reporting season, we also now know that it was a tough year for many industries including building, media, and a whole host of other industries. To illustrate this point Brickability reported “Market volumes for bricks in the UK have been significantly lower in the last twelve months, with UK despatches for the calendar year 2023 approximately 30% lower than 2022". UK brick imports were even worse. We all know that construction supports a wide variety of industries and so 2023 will be a year to forget for many.

I also suspect that job seekers with a wide range of skills have found securing work hard and must wonder when they read job vacancies are still very high. Of course, there are shortages of workers in some sectors, but I have read a number of articles about improvement being needed in how we calculate jobs data and my experience is that there does seem to be a disconnect between candidate experience and the data, or a disconnect between skills needed and skills available.
 
I am happy to report that in Q1 we’ve seen a real upturn in confidence. None of us know when rates will fall, although it was great to see the Swiss National Bank break ranks and start cutting, but most agree that the next rate change is down. Common thinking is that this will increase activity across a whole range of industries and clients in financial services are starting to think about how this may affect their own business and hiring plans. Inflows seem to be increasing at asset managers with Allianz' CEO calling the inflows at subsidiary, PIMCO, “absolutely stunning”. M&G also reported strong inflows into their asset and wealth management business. Our wealth management practice has been super busy and the roles are across compliance, paraplanning, advisers, and T&Cs. As rates fall, firms will get back on the front foot again and hiring should start in earnest.
 
Fram has long supported the VC community, who are so vital to ensuring growth companies in the UK have access to capital, and we also sense more optimism there. This should help fintechs who have also struggled with a lack of access to equity funding as debt also became more expensive. I’m very cautious by nature, but I can see a very positive few years ahead once the effects of the pandemic have worked through the system. I think it will be a very good time to be a job seeker. Infrastructure roles have been hard hit, but as activity increases, already stretched teams in finance, operations and compliance will need more capacity.
 
Do reach out to me or one of our team if you want to discuss market trends in more detail, or anything workforce related. Retention and employee value propositions have never been more important! Otherwise, I hope you have the best few days off, away from the phone and emails. We all work hard and I’m sure one day, when retired, we’ll miss the highs and lows, the friendship and fun, of the workplace. So recharge and let’s all make 2024 better.