This post was originally produced with data from February to April 2020. We have updated on the 29^th May with job search trends for the previous week due to the rapid changes in the market at the moment.

There has been a 212% increase in job advertisements placed within Social Care, according to one of the UK’s leading job sites.

We have compiled data to show the trends in recruitment from both an employee and a job seeker perspective. The data shows an unprecedented dramatic shift in recruitment trends since coronavirus started to have an impact on our lives and businesses.

Despite an overall drop in job adverts placed between February and April of 61%, some sectors are exceptionally busy such as social care and health and medical. Whilst others have only seen small decreases such as Insurance and training.  

At a glance, April looked bleak until we identified a 25% increase of adverts placed during the past 2 weeks; this is across most job types and industries.  And with ‘UK allegedly planning for a staggered workday for commuters as part of its coronavirus lockdown exit strategy, ministers have said’ we expect recruitment activity to increase further during the month of May. 

What is surprising is the high volume of jobs advertised for drivers during February and March,  which then suddenly plummeted in April; which perhaps suggests that businesses were successful in filling these roles owing partly to the high volume of job searches for these roles. Could public demand for home deliveries now be levelling off too?

The biggest increase for a particular search term was for ‘immediate start’, an increase of 120% over 3 consecutive months.  More recently we saw the steepest increase of 69% for the job search ‘farm’ followed by another increase of 58% the following month.  This could be seen as a positive sign for the agricultural industry who have historically relied on seasonal work from the EU for roles such as fruit pickers

With a plentiful supply of active job seeker employers should feel confident that a multi-poster would generate them the necessary candidates to fill critical roles for their business; without costing them a small fortune in recruitment fees

This table shows the increase or decrease in job adverts placed across several sectors:

We are encouraging our clients where appropriate to incorporate current popular search terms into the job title.  For example, we are partnered with a leading business coaching company, who are regularly recruiting for their businesses, often the jobs can be partly home-based. In this instance, it would be sensible to incorporate the term ‘home-based’ into the job title to capture the attention of a job seeker.  Other keywords within the body of the advert could include ‘work from home and ‘immediate start’.

Should you wish for further advice or data please contact us.

Update 29^th May 2020

The current top 20 searches during the week 18^th to 24^th May 2020, as a percentage of search volume (with volume only from the top 20 searches), are: