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Recruitment hits record levels for Acorn across North Wales
Caption: The north-east Wales Acorn team are: (left to right, back row) Hannah Evans, Regional Manager for North Wales Simon Mason, Cathryn Kerwin and Jola Macura-Jlal and (front row) Zuzanna Burton and Director of Operations (North) Alison Broderick.
Wales’ leading recruitment and training agency Acorn has reported record sales in its north-east Wales offices in the first four months of 2009 despite the global economic climate.
Acorn’s office in Wrexham reported 26% sales increases in comparison with the same period in 2008 while its office in Flint reported growth of 21%, reflecting a significant increase in the numbers of temporary and permanent positions they are being asked to fill.
A leading Welsh business brand, Acorn has 32 offices across Wales, the south-west and north-west England and Scotland, and it is the two north Wales offices that are currently producing the company’s best sales growth in the entire group.
Acorn’s Regional Manager for North Wales, Simon Mason, said: “The results are quite outstanding despite the fact that times have been hard.
“We are the leading agency in the area, which undoubtedly helps – the two offices have been established for several years and we’re very well known to both employers and job-seekers. But the main reason for us doing so well in both Wrexham and Flint is because the teams are made up of very skilled and focused operators who know their territories and individual clients very well and, in addition, they put in a lot of hard work.
“We have had great success with the holiday industry in North Wales, which is currently in good shape, and with the promise of good weather and economic circumstances encouraging people to holiday in the UK this year.
“However, a large part of our business in Wrexham and Deeside has always been in the manufacturing sector, parts of which have remained buoyant, despite the regular warnings of doom and gloom. In particular, we’ve found a lot of work with fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs) in food production, ranging from bread to soft drinks – I guess almost regardless of the influence of the downturn we all still need to eat!”
Acorn Regional Director Alison Broderick said: “The teams in Wrexham and Flint have produced outstanding results and deserve our congratulations. Business across the board has picked up for Acorn with performance currently ahead of budget.
“A recruitment agency like ours that provides staff to a range of different sectors is a useful indicator of recovery in a struggling economy. In a recovery period, employers will tend to take on temporary staff first before renewing their commitment to longer-term investment in permanent appointments.
“We have been experiencing that situation recently, which we hope is a sign that the economy is turning.”
Acorn works with some of Wales’ leading employers, and across the UK places up to 5,500 people into about 750 different client companies each week. The company also delivers training to more than 3,000 individuals and makes 1,500 permanent placements every year.
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