Full Week 2 Market Signals report showing winners: Baltics, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Losers: Western Europe, France
2020 has come to an end. It was a difficult year, but we’re full of hope that the new year will bring positive changes to the global job market. If you’re interested in reading a summary of the Market Signals we’ve collected over the year, make sure to request our most recent special report on how the number of job ads and the unemployment rates in Europe behave in relation to each other (we identified 3 tendencies!).
In 2020, we collected 2768 data points over 43 weeks. We analyzed them and turned them into weekly reports, daily updates (available on the Market Signals LinkedIn page), and 7 special reports (such as the 20 biggest economies in the world, job market in the Americas, the top 10 economies in Africa). We will continue keeping an eye on the global job market in 2021, so make sure that you’re following Career Angels on LinkedIn to never miss an update from us!
Where do market signals come from?
Because of how we work when supporting our clients, we have a very unique “glimpse” into how over 5000 Executive Search companies and almost 20 000 decision makers react – the majority of which being located in Europe; and we collect and analyze how they respond; and we observe if and what kind of trends there are to leverage them into better human resources and career management & more effective job search methods.
Before there are trends, there are market signals, which we usually keep to ourselves. But these are not usual times, so we decided to share those market signals by the end of each week. If the country / context is important, we’ll add them. Otherwise, we’ll keep it general for confidentiality.
This is not a full version of this week’s report. View the complete presentation here:
We’ve continued reaching out to CEOs, HR Directors, investors, board members and candidates that we know personally, to take the temperature. Below you’ll find their shortened quotes in no particular order.
However, we’ll start with a KPI that gives a quite good feel of the overall trend on the job market:
Market Signals – the number of job ads published on LinkedIn
Note: some job ads might have been taken off LinkedIn, not because the recruitment process was put on hold or canceled, but because they are costly, especially if you have dozens of them. A company might have wanted to simply cut costs and move to more cost effective alternatives. Some local job portals are offering substantial discounts.
| Initial list of 18 countries | Sorted |
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| Extended list to 38 countries | Sorted |
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Note: the numbers are collected at the beginning of each week, on Monday afternoon. In the full version of this week’s report you can find separate data for regions such as: Visegrad, Baltics, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Iberia, SEE, BENELUX, DACH, Western Europe and EU.
Worth mentioning
First, an overview of the indices:
Index18: This week, 4 countries published more job ads on LinkedIn than in Week 13 of 2020: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Ukraine.
Index36: 60% of the countries published more job ads in Week 1 of 2021 than in Week 15 of 2020. Compared to the last week of 2020, it’s a decrease of 16%.
The European Union: In Week 2, the European Union noted a -30.19% decrease: 1,174,993 fewer job ads were published than in the initial Week 17 of 2020. Since last week, it’s a -7.26% decrease.
Winners of the week: When it comes to regions, the winning result of Week 2 belongs to Baltics: we observed an increase of +81.69% since Week 15. Country-wise, Bosnia & Herzegovina is the winner with an increase of +287.88%.
Losers of the week: In Week 2, the worst result out of all the regions was noted in Western Europe: a -8.13% decrease compared to last week. Worst country result: France with a -21.22% decrease.
Collected Quotes from CEOs and HR Directors
The vast majority of executives are with market leaders in their respective industries. By default, the board members are members of local boards; if not, we’ll indicate the exception.
IT: During the first wave of reductions in the company, 1/3 of the team was laid off – including me. The company is now frozen and will only start functioning again once the market is more stable.
Education: At the beginning of 2020 I managed to escape China and come back to Poland earlier than I planned. Thankfully, I found a job pretty quickly. Everything is remote.
Retail/Pharma: What changed is our case are the challenges that we have to face. ¼ of my team was laid off and it’s been hard to make up for it.
Cosmetics: I am responsible for new business and innovations – since the pandemic it’s been hard to present anything to the management board. The company has focused more on disinfectants than on our regular products (cosmetics).
Useful observations & tips for candidates from one of our contacts
Head of Talent Acquisition / International public organization
Before CV-19, sometimes we’d have only 20 applicants for a post. Now, there’s a massive increase. For some roles it’s double the amount of candidates – for HR roles, even more! A recent posting received 50 applicants within 12 hours! I can see that online interviews are more stressful for candidates because of all the technical challenges. Consequently, their performance is different. The overall candidate experience is also different – not worse, just different.
I still see two struggles for now and beyond CV-19: to formulate proper remote working policies, and to design appropriate digital onboarding processes.
About the future: everything will depend on the success of developing a vaccine. However, there are definitely elements that are here to stay: remote work if physical presence is not required (it currently saves me 5 hours per week, 20 hours per month on commuting – why would I voluntarily want to go back?) and online interviews!
Tips for candidates:
- Cover the basics: our ATS “enforces” as complete applications as possible. Having said that, it still surprises me that approximately 30% of the candidates still don’t get the absolute basics right!
- Don’t apply to everything. Constant rejection affects your motivation. Keep applying to the job ads where you see a fit and don’t give up!
If you want to discuss your professional situation confidentially or if you are considering hiring Career Angels for support, contact Bichl.Sandra@CareerAngels.eu who will personally match you with the most appropriate consultant. For efficiency, add your CV and availability for a Skype call.
If you want to contribute, email your signals to Sandra (everything will be kept confidential).
Market Signals published thus far:
In 2021:
Week 1
In 2020:
Week 53
Week 51
Week 50
Week 49
Week 48
Week 47
Week 46
Week 45
Week 44
Week 43
Week 42
Week 41
Week 40
Week 39
Week 38
Week 37
Week 36
Week 35
Week 34
Week 33
Week 32
Week 31
Week 30
Week 29
Week 28
Week 27
Week 26
Week 25
Week 24
Week 23
Week 22
Week 21
Week 20
Week 19
Week 18
Week 17
Week 16
Week 15
Week 14
Week 13
