'It's just gone bonkers' - recruitment boss on channel vacancies in September

Marc Sumner says the spike for recruitment since the start of September has been 'unprecedented'

New vaccancies in the IT channel have gone through the roof so far in September, with net new positions this month already exceeding those seen in August.

That is according to Robertson Sumner's CEO Marc Sumner, who says demand for recruitment since the start of September has been "unprecedented".

Figures from Robertson Sumner show the first five working days of the month has already exceeded the whole of August in terms of net new vacancies.

The sales, marketing and tech recruitment firm reported 33 net new jobs in August, although the first week of September has spiked to 77 across its divisions.

"It's just gone bonkers," he told CRN.

"I think the market has just gone crazy in terms of actual demand from companies. If there was any sort of signs of a slowdown, that's gone out the window.

"Every company is still actively hiring and adding new teams to their company. I think that's really good news for the IT channel."

Sumner said applications for these new roles are also going up.

He said there has been a "real appetite" in people looking at alternate roles, with the number of applications from adverts increasing.

"This is a good sign that the job market still has confidence," he said.

"If people are applying for jobs and vacancies are coming in, those numbers are both going up. That's a good sign for the wider economy as well."

It comes as the Gerrards Cross-based channel and technology recruitment company launched a new division specialising in technical hires.

Robertson Sumner plans to offer these services to its existing client base first and then roll out to new clients throughout Europe as the team builds.

Sumner said in August: "I just think it's now an opportunity for us to really expand and offer this service to our existing customers and new customers for technical capabilities.

"We're going to really go full steam ahead and that's hopefully going to benefit the channel because we're very well known in that channel market."