Lincolnshire remains strong for future employment opportunities

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Employment opportunities in Greater Lincolnshire and the East Midlands remain strong for 2017, according to the latest ManpowerGroup survey.

The ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey, based on responses from 2,104 UK companies, asked whether employers intend to hire additional workers or reduce the size of their workforce in the coming quarter.

It is the most comprehensive, forward-looking employment survey of its kind and is used as a key economic statistic by both the Bank of England and the UK government.

The outlook for the East Midlands is the strongest in the country (+8%) as engineering and manufacturing continue to be the region’s powerhouses.

Lincolnshire has seen a positive attitude towards future employment too, with many businesses expecting to increase their workforce next year.

Councillor Colin Davie, Executive Member for Economic Development for Lincolnshire County Council, said: “This positive picture seems to tally with what we’re seeing locally.

“In the most recent Quarterly Economic Survey, 19% of the respondents expected to increase their workforce in the next quarter.

In the long-term, it’s estimated that there will be around 200,000 job opportunities in Greater Lincolnshire over the next 10 years.

“Many of these are likely to be in our key sectors of agri-food, care, tourism and engineering. All sectors have interesting opportunities, and I’d encourage anyone looking for a job or perhaps wanting to switch careers to explore the possibilities.”

The national seasonally adjusted Net Employment Outlook has risen to +7% for the first three months of 2017, the highest level of optimism in three years.

Across the country the private sector plans to hire at its highest rate in three years (+8%), with the construction (+9%), business services (+9%) and utilities (+13%) sectors all reporting very positive outlooks.

Greg Hollis, Operations Manager at Manpower, said: “The strong momentum in the East Midlands jobs market shows no sign of slowing down as we head into 2017.

“Employment in the region has traditionally been powered by engineering and manufacturing and demand in these sectors remains high.

“While engineering and manufacturing remain busy, at the other end of the scale, we’ve seen demand for call centre and customer service roles drop, as consumers increasingly go online to solve their queries.”