Covid-19 Recruitment
Insights & Data

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Applications dip to expected end of year levels

Applications dipped by over 20% but remain 64% above the January-March 2020 average. A December dip is far from unusual in any circumstance, given the prevailing mood amongst jobseekers is to start afresh in January after Christmas. Indeed, the data for the final week of December moving into the first few days of January shows an uptick of application activity.

Jobs remain stable

Even as the year closed, jobs registered some of the best values of 2020. At 27% above the January-March average they are just 1% lower than the highest figures for the year. They fell in the final ten days of the month but given most businesses won’t be advertising vacancies over Christmas this is not unexpected.

Cautious return to economic growth

The UK economy returned to growth in December after a lockdown-hit November prompted a downturn. January’s third lockdown will clearly hurt this growth, further redundancies are inevitable and a double-dip recession is possible. However, the vaccine rollouts could maintain vital business confidence.

“The trend for December is a significant reduction in both jobs and applications so for them to be registering healthy figures is encouraging, particularly as we enter another lockdown. We can expect jobs to dip and applications to rise in January but the vital difference between now and March 2020 is the rollout of an extensive vaccination programme which should help to bolster business confidence.”

Applications dip by over 20% but remain 64% above the January-March average.

At 27% above the January-March average, jobs are just 1% below the highest figures for 2020.

The highest number of jobs posted in December was in Public Sector (17%).

The highest number of applications received in December was in Education (15%).

Three of the top five industries for highest number of jobs posted (Property, IT & Internet, Education) are also in the top five industries for applications received – unaltered from November.

The top two industries for jobs posted (Public Sector, Health & Nursing) do not feature in the top industries for applications received, indicating a skills shortage in those areas.

Recruitment Sales is in the top five for applications but without a similarly high number of jobs for the third month in a row.

Unsurprisingly, yet again all of the top five industries for jobs posted either recruit essential workers or have been boosted because of pandemic-influenced market forces.

Latest Recruitment Data

Job Posting and Application data and trends recorded on WaveTrackR