The job board analysed job searches made on its site between March 23rd-April 23rd and compared this with findings for the four weeks leading up to lockdown (February 20th-March 22nd). It shows massive increases for key worker roles, with the top 10 including:
- Carer – 239.6%
- Delivery Driver +150.6%
- Driver +87.4%
- HGV Driver +62.8%
- Electrician +57.2%
- Van Driver +47%
- Plumber +40.6%
- Store Assistant +30%
- Project Manager +24.5%
- Marketing Manager +14.5%
When looking at which job titles searches have dropped for, the data shows that searches for ‘Sales Assistant’ fell by 50.9%, ‘Receptionist’ by 49.1%, ‘Finance Assistant’ by 44%, ‘Office Manager’ by 43.6%, ‘Retail Assistant’ by 38.7%, ‘Personal Assistant’ by 34.3%, ‘Traffic Marshall’ by 28.2%’, ‘Cleaner’ by 21.6%, ‘Site Manager’ by 19.7% and ‘Labourer’ by 8.1%.
Lee Biggins, founder and CEO of CV-Library, comments:
“During these challenging times, we want to give a real-time picture of how the UK labour market is being impacted by COVID-19 and understanding job hunter behaviour is a key part of this. Clearly, job seekers are reacting to market demand and searching for roles that they know are crucial right now; while searches for a number of office-based roles and other professions impacted by lockdown have dropped.
“We know that there will be a shift in the labour market over the coming months, whereby demand from candidates may outstrip the number of jobs available. Hopefully in the coming weeks there will be more clarity on the UK’s exit strategy from lockdown, so businesses can start thinking about their hiring efforts again.”
In addition to this, the job board’s data shows that searches for ‘Home-based’ jobs soared by 228%, for ‘temporary’ roles by 133.8% and for ‘work from home’ jobs up 84%. When looking at searches by industries, CV-Library's data shows that job seeker activity has jumped up in the following sectors:
- Driving +173.4%
- Construction +80.9%
- Engineering +67.1%
- Warehouse +59.1%
- Procurement +21%
- Manufacturing +20.4%
- Finance +17.9%
- Cleaning +13.7%
- IT +4.5%
- Marketing +1.7%
Biggins continues:
“The economy is uncertain right now and in the past this has meant that people didn’t want to move jobs; however, hundreds of thousands of Brits could be out of work due to the pandemic and job searches are ramping up. If you are hiring right now, spend time tweaking and tailoring your recruitment process to ensure it’s fit for purpose. That means amending your job adverts to specify whether the role will start with working from home, and also hosting video interviews to get to know candidates.”
