Number of job adverts rise to a new high

The number of active UK job adverts rose to a new high in the first week of December, hopefully indicating further growth for 2021.

The Jobs Recovery Tracker, produced by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) in partnership with Emsi, revealed that almost every nation and region of the UK saw a rise in job adverts with a notable demand for vets, medical professionals and fitness instructors.

Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the REC, commented, “After a very difficult year, we have seen the jobs market recovering over the past few months, and I am optimistic that this will continue in 2021. Employers will always want to create new jobs where they can, and as the vaccine rollout continues and health restrictions ease, we should start to see that happening more. The recovery of city economies should also accelerate.

“However, we should be under no illusions that jobseekers and businesses will need help from government to adapt to the changed economy. That means working closely with recruiters, the country’s job experts, to get more people back into work, as well as incentivising job creation through tax policy and more effective skills training. In this context, avoiding the economic disturbance of a no deal will also be a vital step to supporting jobs. It’s time to get the deal done.”

Matthew Mee, Director, Workforce Intelligence at Emsi, added, “It has been encouraging to see a steady increase in overall recruitment activity across most of the nation during the last couple of weeks, and this confirms the latest government estimates that national job vacancies levels have now peaked over half a million.

“One slight note of caution, however, is that whilst the total stock of job postings has increased, there has been a slight slowdown in new job posting activity over the last month.

“There are a number of possible reasons for this. It may be related to the time of year, when hiring activity traditionally winds down, or perhaps because organisations are pausing on new hiring activity until there is greater clarity on a Brexit ‘Deal or No-Deal’. It is also possible that some vacancies are proving harder to fill in certain sectors or parts of the country, meaning that some job postings are being kept up for a longer time than would ordinarily be the case. Whatever the reason, we should get a clearer picture in the first few weeks of the New Year.

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