Edinburgh jobs market boosted by rise in skilled vacancies

JobCentre staff say there has been a spike in vacancies in technical and professional areas, including medical and financial jobs, though many of the positions being offered are temporary.

The figure is still well below the peak of October 2007, when 6,206 jobs were advertised, although pre-Christmas levels are always boosted by festive work.

Unemployment has continued to rise in January, with the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance up by 927 to 11,100. It is the highest rise in unemployment since January 1999, although that is in part due to the loss of Christmas jobs.

City leaders said the recent increase pointed to a growth in confidence in the private sector.

Economic development leader Councillor Tom Buchanan said: "We've had a number of new inward investments, obviously Tesco Personal Finance and Virgin Money, and that's proved that the financial sector is a deal more resilient than people were expecting at this time in the economic cycle. That's probably given confidence in the rest of the market to consider taking on staff."

He also pointed to a rise in new businesses set up with the help of Business Gateway, up 128.8 per cent on last year. Cllr Buchanan remained cautious, however. "I think my job is to plan for the worst and hope for the best, so the city council will continue to keep a watchful eye on this. We don't think we're out of the woods yet."

Chamber of Commerce deputy chief executive Graham Birse agreed that the banking sector had shown resilience. "Tesco Finance, Santander, HSBC, all of these banks are recruiting in Edinburgh because they know they can find financial services professionals who know what they're doing and can do the job for them, and for less than London rates."

He said there were also early signs that the hospitality sector was picking up, while private housing and public sector construction projects were also slowly beginning to boost the job market.

However, he warned: "One element in unemployment numbers we need to keep an eye on is the increase in youth unemployment, particularly male youth unemployment and we're seeing signs of displacement, with vacancies that are being advertised being filled by people who are perhaps more experienced than the kids. We need to make sure these people are got into apprenticeships and training schemes.

Jobcentre Plus customer service operations manager, Elaine Brown, said: "What we've found for January 2010 is that there has been an increase in vacancies in technical and professional areas, so lab work, medical professionals, armed forces, and also financial professionals.

"With the professional and technical posts, it's been a mixture of temporary and permanent – some of the vacancies are temporary but that's good, because it's giving people the chance to get in and get a taste of the work."