Hot summer impacts travel recruitment
The hot British summer caused a slowdown in travel recruitment and will likely have a knock-on effect on the coming months, according to recruitment firm C&M.
Releasing its latest Travel Salary Index today, C&M said the market traditionally slows down in August and picks up in September but this year neither month will be as strong.
"Last autumn was especially active for the travel recruitment market with September 2017 being a particular stand out," said Barbara Kolosinska, director at C&M Travel Recruitment and C&M Executive Recruitment.
"In terms of new vacancies, it was the busiest September we’ve seen since our index began in 2012 and we saw more candidate registrations than in any month in at least the past six years.
"Early signs are that September 2018 will rebound from August but it looks unlikely that it will hit the heights of 12 months ago. This could be due to a number of factors, but the weather in the UK always has a big impact. The hot months have caused a number of our clients to have quieter summers than they expected and, with bookings down, that inevitably means that any plans for recruitment will be delayed.
"Also, we have to remember that September 2017 was a record period and, as much as we would like to, we can’t keep breaking records month on month!"
The late summer holiday period had a clear impact on the recruitment market with the number of new travel jobs falling by 15% from July and a ‘troubling’ 27% from August 2017.
There was a 2% increase in registrations from July 2018 although the total remained down compared to the same month last year.
In August the average new travel job came with a wage of £26,597, down 3.63% from July but up by 0.95% from last August.
Average salaries also remained up by a healthy 3.26% in the rolling 12 month average.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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