'Don't panic' - Taunton recruiter gives advice as many workers face redundancy this year

A Taunton recruiter has urged people to be redundancy-ready as businesses face cutting staff this year.

However, despite concerns around the economy, OD Talent Solutions said many industries in the region are growing so there’s reason for optimism among jobseekers.

The company recently recruited Sarah Taylor, who was made redundant late in 2022.

She said the news came out of nowhere, saying: "It was done via a phone call, a video call.

"I was just told completely out of the blue at 10.30am in the morning that the job was gone and don't worry about carrying on working and from this day I've not had a thing from the employer."

Sarah Taylor was made redundant late last year after an unexpected call one morning at work Credit: ITV News

Her new employer, managing director of the company Laura O'Driscoll, said the labour market has been on quite a journey since the Covid pandemic began.

She said: "What we have seen is there remains a skills gap in Somerset and the South West.

"We are starting to see now that there are more redundancies taking place and, as a result, we're seeing a little more movement with more candidates in the job market."

She said if people do face redundancy it is important not to panic as there does now seem to be more businesses starting to recruit.

"Be really smart about where you apply," she added.

Laura advises people not to panic if they are made redundant and for people to try to find work that aligns with their values Credit: ITV News

"Make sure it's somewhere that really aligns with your values and what you want to do.

"Try and find an industry where you think there's lots of future and lots of growth for the future. We have some brilliant green tech and R&D engineering type businesses in the South West.

"There's lots of opportunity in those businesses where we're going to continue to see growth."

One company experiencing that is Bridgwater-based Electrified Automation, which is at the cutting edge of the electric motor industry.

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It builds machines for mass production and is set to move to a larger site in the town soon.

That means there will be a need for more staff at the company but that, ironically, is its biggest challenge right now.

Managing Director Jim Winchester said: "We've got roles open in engineering, manufacturing and operations functions, but unfortunately it's taken probably four times as long as it normally would to recruit the right individuals.

"It's having quite an impact on the business because we're finding we're turning away more new projects than we're able to take on purely because of the rate that we can actually recruit as."