According to the Recruitment & Employment’s (REC) latest Jobs Recovery Tracker, total job postings in the UK were up to 1.10m in the first week of August, with almost 126,000 new adverts posted between 3-9 August – up from 1.4m in the previous week and the highest weekly total since lockdown began.
Yet this is still well below the 1.35m job postings active in the first week of March, before lockdown.
There was a notable rise in job adverts for gardeners (up 24.8%) while there were also large increases in postings for debt collectors (up 20.9%), construction workers (up 15.8%), painters and decorators (up 14.1%), LGV drivers (up 14%) and bricklayers (up 13.3%). Demand also increased for childminders (up 12.1%) and playworkers (up 16.9%).
Neil Carberry, chief executive of the REC, warned that many firms will face cash struggles in September and October and that unemployment will rise, but said the data shows a recovery is underway.
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“Construction sites have reopened, logistics companies are dealing with high demand, and with people spending more time at home, many have been looking to spruce up their house and gardens.
“The increase in adverts for childminders and playworkers is interesting and perhaps linked to more people returning to offices and workplaces in the near future.”
The largest weekly increase in job adverts was seen in Redbridge & Waltham Forest (up 23.7%), while four of the other top ten hiring hotspots were in Northern Ireland – Derry City & Strabane (up 11.5%), Ards & North Down (up 11.0%), Fermanagh & Omagh (up 9.2%) and Causeway Coast & Glens (up 8.7%).
The biggest falls were seen in North Ayrshire (down 15.6%) and Swindon (down 11.5%), although only five counties/unitary authorities registered a decrease in job postings compared to the previous week.
The Jobs Recovery Tracker is produced by the REC in partnership with Emsi, using its Job Postings Analytics data which is harvested from tens of thousands of job boards.
