Rubbish Check
Daily Mail Money · 7 September 2026
source“Jobs drought deepens as redundancies rise and vacancies fall for the 34th month in a row”
R7/ 10
Spin-heavy
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
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In short
Rubbish Talk rates the Daily Mail's claim that Britain's "jobs drought deepens" a 7/10 because the same REC-KPMG survey it cites was published by the REC itself under the headline "permanent placements increase for first time in nearly four years," a detail the Mail buries in paragraph eight rather than leading with.
The Verdict
Spin-heavy. The individual data points in the headline, vacancies falling for a 34th month and redundancies rising, are accurate and drawn straight from the REC-KPMG Report on Jobs. But "deepens" is the wrong word for a report the REC and KPMG themselves framed as showing "the first broad-based improvement in hiring trends for nearly four years." Cherry-picking the negative half of a genuinely mixed report to construct an escalating-crisis narrative is a real inversion of the primary source's own emphasis, not just a soft framing choice.
What actually happened
The REC-KPMG Report on Jobs for August 2026 showed overall vacancies falling for a 34th consecutive month and redundancies rising, as the article reports. The same survey, released by REC and KPMG under a headline touting improvement, also showed permanent placements rising for the first time since late 2022 and temp billings expanding for a fifth straight month. The Mail's own article acknowledges this turnaround only in passing, near the end.
Key facts
- Overall demand for staff fell for the thirty-fourth month in a row in August, with permanent vacancies falling at a solid pace unchanged from July, per the REC-KPMG report quoted in the article.
- The number of people seeking new employment rose at the sharpest rate for three months in August, with redundancies "a prominent theme" behind the trend.
- The REC's own press release on this same August data was headlined "UK recruitment consultancies signalled the first broad-based improvement in hiring trends for nearly four years in August."
- That release states permanent placements rose slightly for the first time since late-2022, while temp billings expanded for a fifth month in a row.
- The Mail's article does note, low down, that there were some signs of a turnaround in sentiment as permanent placements rose slightly, for the first time in four years, but this contradicts the "drought deepens" framing chosen for the headline.
What to watch for
- Watch whether permanent placements build on August's uptick or reverse; one month "for the first time in four years" is a fragile signal, not a trend.
- The Budget next month is cited by KPMG as a pivot point for whether "green shoots" turn into sustained hiring, per Jon Holt's comments in the article.
- Future coverage of this same monthly series should be checked against whichever half of the release, positive or negative, each outlet foregrounds.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
