Is the recruitment market recovery accelerating?
It’s been a year since the first national lockdown started in the UK and for the recruitment sector, it’s been one hell of a rollercoaster ride. The professional staffing arena has faced a mix of vacancy freezes and rapid scaling up of contractor demand in line with emerging project requirements.
But things are beginning to appear much calmer on the surface and a way out of the pandemic feels like it is on the tip of our fingers. But has recruitment started to recover as we’d expect? The answer is no — but not in a negative way! In fact, if we look the latest Recruitment Trends snapshot from the Association of Professionals Staffing Companies (APSCo), hiring could be bouncing back better than many analysts would have expected.
A spike in demand
According to the data, provided by growth analytics platform, cube19, February saw an expected drop in demand, with hiring for both contract and permanent jobs down 3% and 7% month-on-month respectively in February. However, wider data suggests that this a normal seasonal trend and hiring overall is improving. If we compare February’s data with November, for example, vacancies have, in fact, increased 24.6% and 14.6% for contract and permanent respectively.
According to Joe McGuire, Global Sales Director of cube19, this comparison of statistics for non-seasonal months shows real promise for the UK’s hiring market: “There is a very positive narrative in the recent data with both perm and contract placements above the Feb 2020 levels. With perm jobs remaining some way behind the same period this indicates higher conversion rates. The focus should be on using data and insights to maintain this level of efficiency to maximise the benefit of jobs returning to more normal levels as lockdown restrictions continue to ease.”
APSCo’s data also reveals that the annual percentage drop is improving as the UK battles back from the impact of the pandemic. While permanent vacancies fell 27% year-on-year, this marks a slight improvement from January where the yearly comparison stood at -28%. Contract vacancies are also showing promising signs, with just an 8% fall when compared with the pre-pandemic figures from February 2020.
Sustained activity ahead of March
If we look at the information more closely, the daily tracking data in the Recruitment Trends snapshot reveals a tiny dip in roles added when comparing the first week of February with the last. However, this fall is not unusual and is to be expected after the boost in jobs noted in January following a quiet Christmas period.
Interview numbers, in comparison, increased slightly in the last week of February compared to the first, suggesting that this uptick will translate into positive placement numbers in March. Looking specifically at placements, APSCo’s data reveals that permanent placements were up 34% and contract up 9% in the last week of February compared with the beginning of the month. With the Chancellor’s Budget announcement at the beginning of March revealing a continuation of some support for businesses facing on-going challenges as a result of Covid, the last month of Q1 looks set to be a promising one for the recruitment sector.
As APSCo CEO, Ann Swain, explained: “We expect to see continuing fluctuations in vacancies, placements and interviews while the pandemic still has a grip on the UK and global economies. However, this latest data suggests that there are steady improvements being made in the recruitment market. It’s encouraging to see contract vacancies and placements showing signs of improvement, and while the annual percentage gap for permanent hiring is slower to recover, steady progress is being made. And with the Chancellor’s Budget announcement in March bolstering business aid and the job retention scheme now extended, we expect these figures to continue on a positive trajectory throughout March and beyond.”
While March’s hiring data will likely be the biggest indicator of how far we’ve come since the pandemic first started, early signs are certainly promising, and APSCo will continue to ensure the staffing sector is ahead of the latest hiring trends as we all look to bounce back from Covid-19.
