Overwhelmed human resources departments should use contractors to manage the volume of job applications, one expert has said.

Steve Huxham, chairman of the Recruitment Society, said that human resources departments should plan for the increase in job applicants.

He continued that the problems of many employers is that they try to recruit in-house when services are already overstretched.

"If they are failing, there are plenty of people out there that they can outsource this applicant screening to and who will give meaningful messages and feedback to people," added Mr Huxham.

This comes after a survey by Monster.co.uk found that both accounting as well as finance claimed that job applications rocketed in January and were much higher than the same period in 2010.

In other contracting news, the rising utilisation of social media in business could potentially see contracting opportunities rise.

OfficeCavalry.com reported that 71 per cent of businesses are looking to capitalise on social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.