General Election day has arrived!

David Cameron has been campaigning through the night and Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg have been completing the final parts of their campaign.  The words “hung parliament” keep recurring and are all over the news today.

I have worked in recruitment for 11 years now and without doubt, the last 18 months have been the toughest of my career.

In our industry, we are front line facing, speaking to candidates and clients on a daily basis and the message that we are now communicating and seeing is that the economy has recovered and that there are increasingly more opportunities available to prospective employees.

People generally don’t like uncertainty and we are without doubt better equipped to deal with certainty and clarity.  Therefore after 18 months of a turbulent economy, a hung parliament will without doubt create further uncertainty.

Some might say that a hung parliament would not have an immediate affect and in fact Switzerland had a hung parliament from 1952-2008 which was entitled “The Magic Formula” …… however “Magic” is not what the UK currently needs and I believe it would have a detrimental affect on morale and impact the feel good factor that has returned to the UK.

David Cameron, general election, Gordon Brown, hung parliament, Nick Clegg, UK

With four weeks to go until the general election – the first battle ground appears to have been clearly defined around changes to National Insurance.
It is interesting to witness the corporate backlash to the proposed Labour increase and given that the electorate are likely to base their decision on who to support around who they trust to run the economy, we shall see whether labour can woo back the disenchanted heads of British business.

It seems that at the same time the appetite to recruit now, and invest in people in business is at a two year high, certainly in financial services.  Morgan McKinley has just completed a very healthy first quarter – seeing a full 100% increase year-on-year in the number placements across the financial services sector in London.  The most encouraging aspect of this improvement has been a return to hiring in the areas of sales / marketing and risk which was virtually absent 12 months ago.
Time will tell whether the election fuels this feeling of confidence in financial services and whether the sector can sustain this momentum.

general election, Labour increase, National Insurance