Job Market Cheers With New Vacancies At The Highest Level Since Lockdown

Summary

• The jobs recovery tracker from REC showed a record number of new job advertisements posted during mid-September 2020.
• There were around 129,000 new job postings between 14 and 20 September 2020, highest number since lockdown began in the UK.
• The total number of job postings in the UK was also up to 1.21 million.
• There was a rise in advertisements for school support staff like crossing patrols, childminders, and teachers.
• Significant growth in advertisements was recorded for south Nottinghamshire and west London, while it tailed off for Scotland.

The jobs recovery tracker from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) for the week between 14 and 20 September 2020 showed highest number of new job postings since the beginning of March 2020. There were approximately 129,000 new job advertisements posted online, suggesting a rise of three per cent from the previous week.

There has been a steady rise in the total number of active job advertisements in Britain as it reached almost 1.21 million for the week ending 20 September 2020. As compared to the earlier week, this was 1.8 per cent higher. The job recovery tracker from the REC has presented a trend of firm growth in job postings in recent months. The total number of job postings has scaled up by around 25 per cent since the first week of June 2020.

Some popular vacancies

As the schools were reopened from September, there has been a rise in ads for support roles at the schools, including lunchtime supervisors and crossing patrols (+17.1 per cent) and school secretaries (+13.6 per cent). The REC survey found out that vacancies for secondary and primary school teachers stood at +5.9 per cent and +3.6 per cent, respectively.

Due to more people rejoining their workplaces in the month of September 2020, there was a rise in demand for childminders (+10.2 per cent) and playworkers (+7.7per cent). The future editions of the Jobs Recovery Tracker would determine the impact of the new work from home advice on this trend.

There has been a considerable increase in demand for IT related skills in the job market. Demand rose by more than 40 per cent for expertise in technologies like Amazon Web Services, Python, Java Script and SQL.

Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the REC, pointed out that with a spike in the number of Covid-19 infections and recent changes to work from home advisory, it is possible that there could be further alterations in demand during coming months.

Carberry stressed that the government must carefully asses about any further restrictions. Despite public health remaining a priority, the long-term effects of recession and unemployment need not be underestimated. There was a need for a targeted wage support for key sectors to keep more people employed, he added. In case of additional local lockdowns, further support measures would be required.

At the same time, as the recently announced restrictions did not close down significant parts of the economy, it is likely that the trend would remain constant.

Talking about the impact of the newer lockdown restrictions on the increased confidence and activities observed in the job market recently, Matthew Mee, Director, Workforce Intelligence at Emsi, a labour market intelligence company, said that it would be interesting to watch the impacts on some of the vulnerable industries like hospitality, retail, and accommodation.

Highest rise in job postings at a local level was recorded for South Nottinghamshire (+15.7 per cent) and Hounslow & Richmond upon Thames (+15.2 per cent). Biggest decline was registered in Scotland with East Lothian & Midlothian (-8.2 per cent) and Aberdeen City & Aberdeenshire (-2.6 per cent).

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New support measure by the government to protect jobs

The chancellor Rishi Sunak on 24 September 2020 announced a replacement scheme to the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme that would end in October 2020. The chancellor presented an additional government support scheme that is intended to provide certainty to businesses and workers impacted by the coronavirus pandemic across the country.

In order to protect the job losses as the Covid-19 infections are increasing in the UK, Sunak announced a package of measures. During his speech in the parliament, the chancellor launched a new Jobs Support Scheme for protecting millions of returning workers and extended the Self Employment Income Support Scheme, besides extending the reduced VAT cut for the hospitality and tourism sectors for another six months. In addition, he announced help for businesses in repaying government-backed loans. These announcements came after the UK Prime Minster, Boris Johnson set out additional measures to curb the spread of novel coronavirus over the winter, while safeguarding the avenues for economic growth.

According to the new jobs support scheme, the British government would directly support the wages of people in work. It would provide businesses facing depressed demand with the choice of retaining employees in their roles for decreased hours, instead of making them redundant. Sunak informed that the scheme would run for six months and would begin in November 2020. It would be open to all small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). The scheme would be applicable to larger companies only on a selective basis.

The scheme would support viable jobs to ensure that the employees must work for at least a third of their normal hours and reimbursed as normal by their employers. The government along with the employers would thereafter increase the wages of those workers by covering two-thirds of the payment that they lost by reducing their working hours.

Finally, many experts felt that the latest numbers by the REC could boost hopes of a partial recovery in the UK jobs market. The country has seen an increased level of unemployment and job cuts due to the coronavirus-led crisis. With uncertainty regarding the speed of the economic recovery and a rising fear of a second wave of the coronavirus infections, companies need to employ relevant technologies to sustain and grow demand. This would assist in protecting the existing jobs as well as create new roles in coming times. It has been seen that due to significant rise in online shopping, many supermarkets have ramped up their online delivery and announced to add new roles to meet customer demands.