March saw hiring activity across the board fall once again amid economic uncertainty which has forced companies to tighten their budgets for the coming year. Permanent placements have actually declined every month for two and a half years consistently.

In contrast to this the number of people available to work has increased by the fastest pace since December 2020, with steeper increases here in people looking for permanent and temporary positions.

This has been linked to the high number of redundancies since October 2024’s Budget, while there are fewer job openings. Although the number of vacancies is still reducing, the rate at which it is doing so has slowed compared to the end of 2024.

Jon Holt, KPMG group chief executive said: ‘Recent global events have put pressure on any growth prospects in the UK, so it is unlikely that we will see an improvement in the data in the near term.