Employees across the East Midlands are more confident in their job prospects than the national average, but aren’t as optimistic about their chances of a pay rise. That’s according to the latest Robert Half Jobs Confidence Index (JCI) – an economic confidence tracker produced in partnership with the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr).
The data revealed that 61% of staff in the region are confident about their job prospects this year, slightly higher than the national average of 60%. While this falls to 50% who are optimistic about their career options in the next five years, this is still above the national average of 46% for the same timeframe.
Interestingly, despite this level of job optimism, employees across the East Midlands demonstrated below average expectations in salary increases. While the majority (63%) indicated that they will get a pay rise this year, this is below the national average of 65%. The extent of additional remuneration East Midlands staff expect is also lower than the UK average of 3.8%, with workers in the region expecting just a 3% pay rise.
James Paget, Market Director – Midlands & Home Counties at Robert Half, commented:
“It’s interesting to note that despite the high levels of job confidence noted in the East Midlands, pay increase expectations are lower than we would expect. This bucks many of the trends that we see in other regions, however it’s important that employers don’t allow this information to lead to complacency in terms of their employee attraction packages. If staff see that peers in other locations are getting better salary increases and access to additional perks or benefits, firms could be at risk of losing some of their best people.”
Featured Photo by DISRUPTIVO on Unsplash.