According to the latest report from the UK’s leading independent job board, CV-Library, the UK job market has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, as job postings and applications dropped by 15.1% and 10.3% respectively last month.
The study, which explores job market data from March 2020 and compares this with figures from February 2020 and the same period in 2019, also reveals that key industries across the UK experienced an above-average drop in job vacancies month-on-month, including:
- Administration (down 39.1%)
- Leisure/Tourism (down 38.9%)
- Media (down 36.8%)
- Marketing (down 36.6%)
- Design (down 35.7%)
- Recruitment (down 35.7%)
- Sales (down 32%)
- Catering (down 29.6%)
- Legal (down 29.4%)
- Automotive (down 28%)
What’s more, when looking at applications, the industries that experienced the biggest drops were leisure and tourism (-29.9%), administration (-24.1%), marketing (-23.4%), consulting (-21%) and catering (-18.6%).
Lee Biggins, CEO and founder of CV-Library comments:
“It’s not surprising that the outbreak of COVID-19 has prevented businesses from moving forward with their hiring plans. With global supply chains disrupted and many organisations forced to close their doors in order to respect social distancing rules, companies have had to change the way they operate and adapt to this new normal. Sadly, this has involved placing existing employees on furlough and even making redundancies.
“The national unemployment rate is set to soar in April and there’s no doubt that this will be a really tricky time for business owners across the UK. However, we will come out the other side of the pandemic and organisations need to be ready. Remember, we may be under these social distancing restrictions for some time, so be prepared to hire remotely and consider how that’s going to work. For example, you’ll probably need to adapt your recruitment process to rely on techniques such as video interviews.”
Furthermore, while many industries are struggling, the data shows that job vacancies have increased in some key sectors when looking at year-on-year figures. This includes roles in the public sector (up 103.7%), agriculture (up 98.7%), social care (up 17.9%), education (up 2.9%) and distribution (up 2.1%) industries.
Alongside this, the current situation has caused new candidate registrations on the CV-Library site to rise dramatically, with the amount of people registering their CV increasing by 8.1% month-on-month and 11.1% year-on-year.
Biggins continues:
“The sad reality is this is going to be a tough year for many businesses. And, while the government’s assistance should provide some respite, the future of our economy and the UK job market remains uncertain. I your business falls into a key industry that is experiencing growth, you should definitely continue moving forward with your hiring efforts and provide opportunities to the millions of people who may be out of work.
“After all, the country is in a perilous situation and needs these key services to continue operating efficiently. So, if you’re struggling to find the best candidates, you should consider recruiting workers from outside your normal sector. Most professionals have transferrable skills that will be of use to your business and this is crucial if we want to keep the country running during this difficult time.”
About CV-Library
CV-Library is one of the UK’s largest online job sites and attracts over 4.3 million unique job seekers every month. Founded by Lee Biggins in 2000, CV-Library is the UK’s leading independent online job board with a database of over 15 million CVs.