It is crucial for the economy that regulations that could slow the return to full employment are not put in place, a leading recruiter organisation has claimed.

Roger Tweedy, director of research at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, claimed that the labour market is beginning to stabilise, which is good news for IT contractors.

He said that the most important thing at this point is to avoid disrupting the slow return to progress.

"The road to full employment will be slow but the trend of increasing employer confidence and a return to hiring is now established," he explained.

Mr Tweedy added that increasing employers' costs will be one of the potential pitfalls and could stall the job market's recovery.

His comments come at the same time as International Labour Organization figures that show 7,000 fewer people were unemployed at the end of November, the first fall in this figure since May 2008.