North West Legal Recruitment Market a Cold Spot in 2011

Query from Client: Hi Jonathan, you may recall we spoke last summer when I used your application review service (I got down to the final 5 but lost out to a much more experienced candidate from London). I'm emailing you because I've just googled "legal recruitment market 2011" and what appeared was a blog written by you in January 2011. In the blog you stated that the North West (especially Manchester) would be a recruitment "cold spot" for 2011. Can I ask (1) why this is and (2) as 2011 progresses, is re recruitment in Manchester still very quiet?

My answer to this is as follows:
1. Manchester and the surrounding area have been hard in recent months by the collapse of Halliwells, the Consumer Credit Solicitor fiasco and other smaller firm closures.
2. The Manchester and North West legal markets at corporate level appear to be very dependent on the business of a couple of large companies, local authorities and government funded project work.
3. With the reduction in public spending happening, we think the Manchester legal job market will remain stunted and a cold spot for some time, together with the North East and Newcastle.
Please correct me if I am wrong - we are locally based (one of our offices is in North Wales) so would love to see the area boom! Jonathan Fagan, MD
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