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I4 Jobs reflects on the results of the Monster E-Recruitment performance results. The report is a summary of the activity of all major online recruitment job boards and analyses UK activity across all major industries, occupation and geographic regions to give an overview of UK web recruitment.
Overall, the Monster Employment Index experienced a small decline from the previous month but had risen by 6% over the same period last year (the annual year-over-year figures).
Industries that performed well were transport & logistics (up 35% on last year), engineering (+28%) and construction (+28%). IT came just behind these industries with an impressive 25% although disproportionate to the actual employment growth figures released by the office for national statistics.
Conversely, the Legal (-15%), public sector (-13%) and healthcare (-11%) industries saw the poorest growth, actually receding on last year. These figures are fairly unsurprising as the continued government cuts continue to have a significant impact on public sector and health employment.
Of the Occupations monitored by the index, 90% grew in online advertising over the same time last year. In particular, craft and trader workers (+31%), plant and machine operators (+22%) and professionals (+14%) experienced the most impressive growth. Whereas, Managers (+2%), Agricultural Workers (+1%) and Service workers (-1%) saw the most sluggish growth.
These stats show that online recruitment is faring well given the current labour market and that it is likely to perform well in the immediate future.
A recent Online Recruitment survey conducted by the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) revealed the state of graduate employment 3 years following the completion of their course.
It revealed that 72.3% of 2008 university leavers were in full time employment or self-employed on a full time basis. Furthermore, 8.8% were in part-time or voluntary employment and 5.3% were combining work with further study. 6.5% decided to study for further qualifications (up almost 50% on the figures from 2006).
This leaves 7.1% that were still unemployed after graduating 3 years ago. Comparing this to 2.6% unemployment in 2005 and 2% in 2003, this strongly demonstrates the effect the recession has had on unemployment. Of all unemployment figures, graduate employment was among the worst affected. i4 suggest that the reason for this is that employers look to minimise risk in harsh economic times, seeing graduates with little or no employment as a high risk, high investment venture.
Another survey aimed at recent graduates found that work experience gained during their further education and family and friend contacts were the most successful methods of gaining employment (with 23% and 15% respectively). The report also stated that university career centres and alumni associations helped find jobs for 13% of graduates.
Although the current graduate employment situation is rather bleak, we, at i4, expect graduate employment to improve dramatically in 3-5 years when the economy recovers and employers gain more confidence in their investment options. The cost of further education is increasing however 85% of ex-students stated that they found their university qualification to be “Helpful”, “important” or “necessary” in securing employment, making it as crucial as ever to the employability of young people.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) released results of a recent online recruitment survey on employee wages. It revealed that 3 in 5 people received pay freezes this year with just 1 in 4 reporting a pay rise. Furthermore, 6% had had a decrease in take-home earnings since January of this year.
According to the results, 77% of public sector workers had their pay frozen while 11% were given pay decreases and just 12% received a raise.
Pay rises mostly occurred in the manufacturing (48%) and finance (46%) sectors whereas jobs in hotels and restaurants (19%) and construction (25%) suffered the lowest levels.
A representative from the CIPD stated that, “Even for those who are lucky enough to get an increase in their pay will find it below the current cost of living, compounding consumer belt-tightening...Inflation figures later this month will highlight growing pricing pressures, which is likely to continue for some time.”
The CIPD went on to predict that the private sector will see a small increase in the number of workers receiving pay raises in the second half of this year. Particularly in the retail, catering and hotel sectors as the increase in minimum wage comes into effect in October.
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