Portfolious

As we begin the second decade of the NORA’s, it’s worth reflecting on just how much the UK online recruitment sector has changed, grown and matured since our very first awards were presented.  Back in 2001, we were seeing the initial bloom fall from the cheeks of many online businesses.  The Dotcom Bubble, as it was called had inflated so quickly, that new online ventures were being formed every day, and often gaining investment on the basis of a “fag-packet” business plan.  By 2001, no-one was investing, and many companies, like BOO.com, had folded after burning through immense amounts of investment.  

Throw open the shutters, open the windows, and take the sandbags from the doors. The storm of recession has past, and we can all get back to normal. Perhaps not quite.According to the Office of National Statistics, the UK economy experienced growth of 0.1% in the last quarter, and unemployment unexpectedly fell by 7,000 in December. Now that the snow has cleared away, there’s nothing to stop us. These figures may be great for confidence, but there is much to overcome still in the recruitment market.

Every week, since August 2000, the volume of vacancies advertised on Britain’s most popular job boards has been monitored by AlljobsUK.com. We now have data for these websites for the past 480 weeks. Because we monitor a range of of websites, we are able to more accurately reflect the state of the UK online recruitment sector. Whilst the Monster recruitment index will tell you the experience of only one job board, we are able to track the ebb and flow of the market as a whole. The effects of the current recession are all the more dramatic, when seen in visual form.

The volume of vacancies advertised on UK job boards has fallen by 69% in the past 2 years. And this is in a market that is abandoning print advertising for digital – The Sunday Times contained only 8 actual job adverts this week.  So do we know just how the job boards that we all use, on a daily basis, are faring in the current economic climate?  We do know, for example, that the official number of unemployed now stands at 2.4 million, and has increased by 220,000 in the past three months.  When people are losing jobs and not finding new ones, we also know that demand is far outstripping supply. There are of course many firms still recruiting,