Depending on the country, the government reactions to CV-19 (e.g. from no to partial to full lock-down) started at different moments during the first quarter of 2020. Consequently, the job markets (and its players) responded in their own manner and timing.
Given the nature of our work at Career Angels, we are very close to the job market and its decision makers; and everybody we spoke to (almost 500 board members across Europe) had a different opinion and reaction early on, as well as during the 20 weeks that followed. But opinions are just that – personal impressions and interpretations.
We, therefore, felt the need to find a KPI that better reflected how the various job markets reacted. The moment we realized that CV-19 was not a temporary phenomenon, but a temporarily permanent one, we chose to track the number of published job ads on LinkedIn which is an actual indicator of demand on the visible job market. And even though it’s not a perfect KPI, as e.g. some companies decided to move their job ads to cheaper local platforms, it still gives a quite good feel of how confident companies feel about the further market development.
Career Angels started tracking the number of published job ads in Week 13 of this year – for 18 countries, we then extended it to 36 countries in Week 15 and to 38 countries in Week 17.
Every week we prepare and publish a weekly report and regularly, a report to summarize a certain period – all reports usually included:
- quantitative data
- qualitative input from board members, HR Directors and Executive Search Consultants
- a summary of Best Practices from various corporations
- tips for experienced candidates on their job search and career management
From a purely human perspective, for some the last 20 weeks have been the most frustrating / unstable / difficult / worrisome / work-intensive / challenging / hard / emotional / tough / daunting / unpredictable / distressing / concerning / negative / [fill in your own word] ever or at least in a long time. For others, it’s been a great opportunity. And there’s a group of people who’ll be able to turn the former into the later.
One thing that can be said for everybody: CV-19 has changed our professional lives. How you react to it and what you do with it, is up to you. To quote John F. Kennedy, “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
This time we are sharing a summary of the last 20 weeks – all 36 countries, incl. data for the regions that we track additionally. If you’d like access to the report, send an email to Bichl.Sandra (at) CareerAngels.eu. Subject: 20-week summary.
