​​When Rachel Reeves announced her novel idea to grow the economy by taxing the hell out of businesses, I must admit that my initial thought was, ‘oh no, here we go again!’

But despite inflation beginning to rise again and a raft of big businesses announcing redundancies, this hasn’t translated into hesitancy within the FMCG commercial job space. In fact, based on our own experiences, quite the opposite has happened. This is evidenced by our current Work in Progress value (jobs we are actively working) being up 26% on Q4 of last year and 32% up on Q3.

First thing to mention, though, is that this isn’t indicative of the wider recruitment landscape. In fact, just a couple of months ago, James Reed, owner of one of the UK’s largest recruitment firms, announced that vacancy figures were now 26% lower than a year ago.

Second thing to mention is that we operate in an industry that is somewhat shielded against recessions. Ultimately, you can make decisions about purchasing TV’s or cars or holidays, but when it comes to food and drink, they’re pretty fundamental to life itself. Even luxury food goods do well in recessions because people trade down and choose steak and champagne at home over blowing £200 on a slap-up meal out.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly to the candidates that we work with, is that we specialise within the commercial functions, which suggests to me that the businesses we’re working with are taking a proactive approach to countering rising costs by boosting topline growth.

Speaking for my own business, we’re in a position where our fixed costs represent a relatively high percentage of our overall costs. Greeted with a situation that many businesses are faced with in the current climate, it wouldn’t make much sense to batten down the hatches because we couldn’t escape our fixed costs. And sticking where we are is also not ideal as the efficiencies of lower fixed cost percentages can only be realised on the other side of growth.

Unfortunately, though, attempting to grow during economic turmoil is a high risk game, particularly in industries that aren’t afforded the luxury of the resilient genetics that FMCG has been gifted with. But for those who are brave enough to raise their head above the parapet, there is a chance to make a real impact.

As with any threat, there is opportunity, and finding businesses who are looking to grow during (potentially) recessionary times, then joining them on that journey while they gobble up market share, offers something exciting for candidates who are looking to leave a legacy. 

As Richard Branson once advised, if you up your marketing efforts whilst others are cutting theirs back, your share of the noise in the marketplace rises exponentially. Of course, as I mentioned previously, there are risks to this approach, but find the right business and the rewards can be great.