For all the talk of concerns about the economic outlook, the jobs market remains strong. The latest unemployment figures showed a further fall in the jobless rate to 4.7 per cent. And a quarterly survey from recruiters Morgan McKinley reports a 9 per cent increase in the number of new professional job opportunities in the second quarter of the year compared with the previous quarter. In a further sign of a strong market — and of course of the rise in inflation — salary expectations continue to rise. Trayc Keevans of Morgan McKinley talks of a “candidate-driven” market, where employers are scrapping for talent and having to offer higher salaries, flexible or fully remote working and other perks.

One result of this is embedding the practice of working from home, with the Morgan McKinley survey reporting that half of the candidates in the tech sector say they would refuse to put their name forward for a role if it did not allow them a full-time remote-working arrangement. The survey reports that the one area where recruiting has become more conservative is in VC investor-backed early stage tech companies, where it seems sign-off rules are getting stricter.

Is this a sign of things to come in the wider tech sector? We will just have to wait and see, with mixed signals form the latest reporting season and some sign of a more general pull-back in hiring worldwide from a sector that has been battered by the markets in recent months. On a wider scale, there are also signs of some companies pulling back on investment plans, with Ibec this week saying the economy looked to be at a “turning point” as consumers and businesses react to the extraordinary increase in energy and other costs and the threat of more to come.

This coincidence of a very hot jobs market and falling economic confidence is unusual. Can the candidate-driven market hold for the rest of the year? The bet must be that hiring will start to slow later this year and moving into 2023 and that the whip hand may — slowly — start to move back to the employer. That said, the strength of the jobs market to date is encouraging.