Job Gazumping in the Automotive Aftermarket: What Would It Take for Aftermarket Workers to Accept a Counter-Offer?

Job Gazumping in the Automotive Aftermarket: What Would It Take for Aftermarket Workers to Accept a Counter-Offer?

This article was originally published on 9 July 2018

What would it take for aftermarket workers to accept a counter-offerNew research launched by Autotech Recruit has revealed that ‘job gazumping’ is having a big impact on the automotive aftermarket industry*. Due to pressing factors – such as the skills shortage that has been affecting the industry over recent years – just how much is the gazumping phenomenon impacting the sector?


Key findings:

• More than half (55%) of the participants have been offered a higher salary from an employer in the aftermarket industry after receiving a new job offer to get them to stay in their current role

• More than half of respondents (60%) said that their employer offered them a higher salary to stay in their position as they felt they would be unable to find someone with the same level of experience, training or qualifications – highlighting the skills shortage in the industry

• Exactly half of respondents who had been given a counter-offer were only offered a higher salary as an incentive to stay (38%), however the other half had been offered other incentives including extra training (14%), flexible hours (11%) and extra holiday (6%). This suggests that gob gazumping doesn’t necessarily have to be salary-based in order to persuade employees to stay


More than half (55.36%) of participants involved in the targeted study, carried out by the MOT testers and vehicle technicians recruitment specialists, said that they’ve previously been offered a higher salary to persuade them to stay in their role after receiving a new job offer – and proposed salaries will need to be competitive in order for them to accept the counter-offer.

The study found that many companies will offer more than just money in order to persuade employees to stay in their roles, such as extra training, flexible hours, more holiday and a promotion,

Exactly half of respondents who had been given a counter-offer were only offered a higher salary as an incentive to stay (37.5%), however the other half had been offered other incentives including;

  • Extra training (14.3%)
  • Flexible hours (10.7%)
  • Extra holiday (6.3%)
  • Company car (2.7%)
  • Promotion (1.8%)

However, more money is what employees want. The results showed that more than two thirds (76.79%) of respondents would need to be offered more money to accept a counter-offer, and the other incentives were of less importance. Flexible working hours ranked as the second most popular condition (35.71%) and receiving more training ranked as the third (28.57%).

Almost half of respondents (41.76%) were offered up to £2,000 to stay in their role, compared to 21.9% of respondents who were offered between £2,001 and £5,000. However, just 5.49% of respondents were offered a salary increase of more than £5,000 – suggesting that whilst employers are willing to pay out for their talented staff, not many are willing to rise above £2,000 to entice them to stay.

Out of the 814,000 people people currently employed across the automotive industry in the UK, many will be employed under a full-time contract but a large number of these people will be employed under a temporary contract. However, the research revealed that temporary workers in the automotive aftermarket industry are not as likely to be ‘gazumped’ as their non-temporary colleagues; just under half (48%) of respondents who classed themselves as temporary workers had been gazumped in the past, compared to nearly two thirds (57.47%) of permanent workers.

So, what is the cause for job gazumping in the aftermarket industry?

Well, many participants of the survey believe it’s due to the skills shortage; more than half of respondents (59.72%) said that their employer offered them a higher salary to stay in their position as they felt they would be unable to find someone with the same level of experience, training or qualifications. Further, some respondents answered that they appealed to their employers due to their flexibility, so were perceived as too good to lose (6.94%).

For more information on this research, please contact our Marketing Department at marketing@autotechrecruit.co.uk.

* Autotech Recruit conducted a targeted survey within the automotive aftermarket sector in April 2018. 112 participants partook in the research.

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