30% increase in new applicants on Totaljobs as candidate activity remains high amid market uncertainty

In March, a change to the living and working habits of the UK’s population has meant that businesses have needed to adapt.

While businesses who have been planning to undergo a digital transformation for years have had to do it very quickly – ensuring business performance remains stable, and output is not affected by new ways of working.

However, although as a result of the outbreak, some employers have stalled recruitment – many are significantly increasing their hiring to meet consumer and popular demand across essential industries.

An overview of the market

A drop in the number of vacancies being advertised presents an opportunity for those employers looking to recruit necessary staff – and those equipped to continue recruitment efforts remotely. In all, there were over 4 million applications recorded on Totaljobs in March, as candidate activity on the Totaljobs platform remains strong. With these factors combined, in the final week of March, the average number of applications per vacancy (APV) on Totaljobs was 34.

What’s more, driven by those who have unfortunately found themselves without work since the outbreak of Covid-19 looking for new opportunities, in March, there were almost 200,000 new applicants on the Totaljobs platform. As the month progressed, this grew further, meaning that when comparing the final week of March with the last week of February, there was a 30% increase in new users signing up to apply for jobs.

Redeploying staff in the most affected industries

With government restrictions in place, the most negatively affected industries in the UK are hospitality and travel. These sectors have seen a reduction in advertised vacancies of up to 60% over the past month.

However, as workers in these fields look to find work, whether short term or permanent, we have seen a rise in the number of people utilising the transferable skills they possess by applying for roles in other industries.

With an estimated 500,000 workers expected to be made redundant or temporarily out of work, Totaljobs’ sister company Caterer.com has partnered with industry body UK Hospitality and charity Hospitality Action to analyse thousands of roles across the vast Totaljobs Group database to create the Hospitality Redeployment Hub. This hub features 26,000 job opportunities and has been created to help hospitality workers back into work until they can return to roles in the sector.

Growth sectors

With rising demand, many industries around the UK have taken to recruiting staff to ensure they can deliver vital services and keep the country on track. This has been met with increased candidate activity.

Across March, there was a 7% increase in the number of applications for farming and agricultural roles advertised on Totaljobs compared to February, with this reaching an 87% increase when comparing the final week of each month. With this, on Totaljobs there has been an increase in candidate searches for agricultural roles, with the final week of the month seeing searches for ‘farm’, ‘farm worker’ and ‘agriculture’ double week on week.

Meanwhile, with nearly 900,000 applications in March, logistics roles such as warehouse operations and driving, have attracted applications from 68,000 new users on Totaljobs, equivalent to a third of all new applicants. This is meeting demand from business, with the last week of March recording above average job postings across core sub-disciplines in logistics. This includes a 25% uplift in packing jobs advertised, a 16% uplift in warehouse roles and a 19% in distribution positions.

While, roles in healthcare have naturally seen an increase with the increased demand on the medical profession. This includes a monthly 7% increase in advertised roles for doctors, a 6% rise in nurse vacancies, supported by a 67% increase in cleaning roles advertised across the healthcare sector,

This is in part due to a new initiative from Totaljobs, which sees us work closely with NHS Jobs to promote vital roles in the fight against Covid-19 free of charge. With 40,000 healthcare professionals using Totaljobs in the last 3 months, these figures could be set to grow in the coming weeks.

Looking ahead

Though recent initiatives such as the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention scheme (better known as furloughing) has mitigated some risk of redundancy, uncertainty continues to affect many industries across the UK, in terms of further recruitment.

For those businesses continuing or expanding recruitment drives, there has been a swift adoption of innovative techniques. With this in mind, Totaljobs is offering employers access to free video interviewing software, as they look to assess candidates for vital roles without the need for a face-to-face meeting.

Beyond this, we will likely see a greater prominence of remote onboarding, as new hires are brought into the workforce. While otherwise, employers are focusing heavily on the mental health and wellbeing of their staff – as well as continuing successful business performance.