// NEWS //
New data reveals limited employment growth as UK labour market falters post budget
Employment Hero, a global leader in HR, hiring and payroll software, has released its December Jobs Report, a snapshot of employment and wage trends based on realtime data from over 115,000 employee records within small businesses in the UK. The latest data reveals that employment gains in December were muted, rounding off a trend of slowed growth for small businesses which persisted throughout 2025.
Employment Hero has been tracking these trends over the last 12 months, showing the real-world impact of the Autumn Budgets and subsequent employment law updates. Small businesses, which employ the majority of the UK workforce, responded immediately to these changes, with a sharp monthly employment decline of – 1.1 % recorded in April 2025. This set off a chain of events that has shaped employment patterns for the rest of the year.
Traditionally, December is a crucial month for jobseekers, as employers take on extra staff to meet heightened consumer demand. However, the latest figures show minimal growth, with employment increasing just 0.5 % month-on-month, the lowest monthly increase observed since April.
The muted increase suggests that the usual seasonal hiring surge did not materialise, indicating small businesses are
staying cautious amid ongoing economic uncertainty following the 2025 October Autumn Budget, which many small businesses felt did little to support them. Retail and hospitality were particularly affected, with employment in these sectors contracting by – 2 % in December.
CrowdStrike and Nord Security announce strategic partnership to redefine SMB cybersecurity
CrowdStrike and Nord Security have announced a strategic partnership to redefine SMB cybersecurity. The collaboration combines CrowdStrike’ s AI-native Falcon platform with Nord Security’ s secure access and credential management solutions to deliver enterprise-grade protection that’ s simple, accessible and built for every business.
Challenged by limited budgets and cybersecurity expertise, CrowdStrike’ s State of SMB Cybersecurity Survey shows just 36 % of small and midsize businesses are investing in new tools, and only 11 % have adopted AI-powered defences.
At the same time, adversaries are increasingly targeting smaller organisations with enterprise-level attacks. This partnership directly addresses that gap, seamlessly giving SMBs access to the AI-powered protection, intelligence and speed trusted by the world’ s largest enterprises.
“ This partnership transforms how SMBs secure their business,” said Daniel Bernard, Chief Business Officer at CrowdStrike.“ Together with Nord Security, we’ re redefining cybersecurity for SMBs – combining the power of the Falcon platform with Nord’ s SMB go-to-market prowess and secure access technology to deliver enterprise-grade protection that’ s fast to deploy, simple to manage and built to stop breaches.”
“ Every growing business faces the same challenge: their attack surface is expanding faster than their ability to secure it,” said Mantas Ulozas, Chief Business Development Officer at B2B Commercial at Nord Security.“ By combining our secure access and credential management solutions with CrowdStrike’ s Falcon platform, we’ re removing barriers of cost and complexity that have long limited SMBs’ access to enterprise-grade protection – giving them the visibility and confidence to defend against modern threats.”
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