Monster’s employment indices for July suggest that levels of online recruitment activity are beginning to stabilise in the UK and parts of western Europe.  The UK index held steady at 110, while the European index declined by a single point to 101.

Apart from a modest one-off increase in February, the UK index has now remained relatively static for the whole of 2009 to date, shifting not more than a couple of points in either direction from month to month.  The hope is that the sharp decline experienced in the latter part of last year has now bottomed out.

July saw increased activity in sectors such as transport, post & logistics and production/manufacturing/maintenance/repair, while legal and healthcare/social work also rebounded strongly.  More modest increases were experienced in sales, the public sector, HR, engineering and arts/entertainment/sports/leisure, with even construction & extraction managing to put on a couple of points.  At the opposite end of the scale, demand in the management & consulting category fell away by nineteen points.

The regional picture was mixed: Northern Ireland proved to be the best performer, four points ahead for the month, while Scotland, the North, the Midlands, London and the South East all registered more modest gains.  East Anglia, Wales and the South West experienced declines of three, four and six points respectively.

“It is encouraging that overall online job demand has stabilised and that recruiting in the goods-producing sector is picking up, but there is still little indication that hiring has resumed in the much larger service sector,” commented Hugo Sellert, Monster Worldwide’s head of economic research.  “The UK economy’s sustained contraction in the second quarter means labour market conditions will remain challenging in the foreseeable future.  Competition for top talent is still fierce, however, as companies seek to attract the most qualified workers from the growing pool of unemployed workers.”

In Europe, online job demand eased for the fifth successive month, although the overall rate of decline has slowed to a trickle.  But the headline figure masks contrasting performances from some of the leading economies.  Demand in France, Italy and Belgium advanced by six, five and four points respectively, while the Netherlands also edged into positive territory with a single-point rise.  The UK remained unchanged, but Germany saw a two-point fall while Sweden registered an eight-point drop.

“The continued slowdown in EU recruitment activity at the onset of the third quarter shows that recent improvements in overall economic sentiment have yet to boost job-creation among European companies,” added Hugo.  “Germany, where hiring started to cool at a relatively late stage of the downturn, is now weighing heavily on the Index, while demand appears to have stabilised in other major markets such as France, the Netherlands and the UK.”

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Some managers are targeting job candidates made redundant by rival firms, dispelling the “myth” that there is a stigma attached to losing your job, research has suggested.

A recent study of 500 human resources managers and 4,000 workers found completely opposite views on the treatment of people being laid off.

One in three workers feared that potential employers looked badly on candidates recently made redundant, while a similar number of managers said the opposite was true.

More than a third of workers believed there were no jobs available, but half of firms said they were still recruiting staff despite the recession.

Commenting on the research, Ian Partington, Managing Director of Simply Jobs Boards said: “Job losses are dominating the headlines, but not all companies are shedding staff or freezing recruitment. It’s easy to see how job hunting myths can come to fruition when candidates are under increased stress.

“However, the research shows that in this difficult time, many businesses need talented, committed employees more than ever.”

www.simplyhrjobs.co.uk

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A very prudent marketing plan is starting to pay dividends for us all at Simply Jobs Boards with all of our sites recording very impressive market share increases since Jan 2009 according to Hitwise.

The biggest gains have been made by InAutomotive (56%) gain,  Simply Sales Jobs (40% gain),  Simply HR Jobs (48% gain) and Simply Law Jobs (30% gain)

“The increases have come about at a time when the industry has been hit hard by the world wide recession, the downturn has meant that a number of our competitors have scaled back their marketing efforts” said Marketing Manager, Rob Hillyard.  ‘Our strategy has always to been to grow our market share through prudent online marketing so that we increase the amount of number one rankings in search engines, not just for generic terms like “sales jobs” or “marketing jobs” but long tail terms such as “hr jobs in London” or “fmcg sales jobs in Manchester“, Rob continued

To complement this strategy Simply Jobs Boards have started to build community elements around our sites with Blogs, News sections and forums keeping jobseekers and non jobseeking professionals up to date with industry movement

“We are confident our strategy will bring further success during 2009 and into 2010 which means we will be well placed when the economy starts to strengthen”  added Ian Partington, Managing Director

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