Steve Jordan talks to Caroline Seear about the UK recruitment market and why it’s stuttering right now.
Caroline Seear is the founder and CEO of Red Recruit, a major employment agency in the UK that specialises in matching candidates with jobs in the moving and freight forwarding industries. According to Caroline, the last couple of years has seen a major shift in the employment market employers much more reluctant to take on new people. But Caroline believes that the change has not come about because of real market forces: to some degree at least, it’s just careless talk.
If you look at the house sale statistics for the UK, they have been very stable over the last few years. In 2023 many were predicting a crash in house prices with the inevitable stagnation of the moving industry. But it didn’t happen.
In a report in The Mover in March 2025, Colin Bowkett from Mover Alerts said that the market for residential sales in 2024 had been 12% up on 2023, back above pre-COVID levels. This was despite some major events that traditionally hold back property sales such as The Olympics and the football European Cup. “There are a lot of properties going up for sale now and that will give us a good start,” said Colin in November last year. “It’s looking very positive for next year.”
So, if the property market is looking so buoyant, why does Caroline say that recruitment is struggling? “We are doing very few new hires right now,” she said. “All the appointments are for replacements. Normally, at this time of year, companies are looking towards developing new projects, but they are just not coming through this year.”
Caroline initially points to the increase in Employers’ National Insurance contributions due to take effect this month. This has increased the cost of employing people and made companies think twice about taking on new staff. But, even so, if the business is there, as would be suggested by the house sale figures, they will need to take people on sooner or later. So why are they holding back?
“Much of our economy and our behaviour around money is emotional,” she said. “Negative talk can have a real effect on people’s emotions and stop them thinking positively. The result is that they create the very thing they fear.” ...
Photo: Caroline Seear.
Click here to read the full story in The Mover magazine.