Vacancy numbers for ‘professionals’ has seen a big increase since November according to the latest monthly Recruitment Trends Snapshot report from The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo). Key insights from the analysis are:
- Hiring up 25% for contract and 15% in permanent since November
- Annual hiring down but percentage fall continues to decrease
- Daily tracking data shows signs of sustained activity
Month on month numbers are slightly down, but the trend overall shows an increase in hiring. Following the usual furry of hiring in January, both contract and permanent jobs were down 3% and 7% respectively in February. However wider data suggests that this a normal seasonal trend – when comparing February’s data with November, for example, vacancies have increased 24.6% and 14.6% for contract and permanent respectively.
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.
Interview numbers 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.
