BUSINESS NEWS - UK - Job vacancies for white-collar sector see monthly drop in August, but job interview activity on the rise
Posted 15th September 2020 • Written by staffingindustry.com • • • • •
After two months of increases in both job vacancies and placements, job opportunities in the UK for the professional white-collar sector, including IT, professional services, life sciences, finance, marketing, HR and engineering, decreased slightly in August with a 3% month on month drop in permanent roles and a 6% month on month drop in contract vacancies, according to the latest monthly Recruitment Trends Snapshot report from The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) and growth analytics platform, cube19.
The report, which tracks daily hiring activity, also showed that interview activity, showed an average 6% increase in interviews in the last two weeks of August compared with the first two weeks, an indicator that a potential rebound in placements will follow through in the autumn.
The daily tracking also revealed that revenue from permanent placements grew by 17% in the last two weeks of August compared with the first two weeks and revenue from contract placements grew by 21%
“The daily tracking data does seem to suggest that metrics are moving in the right direction,” Ann Swain, CEO of APSCo, said. “Feedback from our members suggests that recruitment firms are gearing up for a strong September and are encouraged by the activity levels they are seeing.”
Joe McGuire, Global Sales Director at cube19, said, “We fully expected to see a slight reduction in most August metrics, not least because of holidays but also because there are fewer working days in August than July. The daily average for most metrics is continuing to increase including encouraging contract revenue numbers which have shown another month of double-digit growth.”