Ukrainian job aggregator Jooble, the second most popular one in the world, has shared with AIN.UA its research on how the global job market changes when affected by the coronacrisis.

The company has analyzed job searches in the U.S., Europe, and Ukraine, and concluded that the number of available job offerings has declined, but not drastically. The activity of job seekers themselves, though, has dropped significantly.

The world

Businesses respond to the pandemic with staff cuts, unpaid leaves for personnel, and salary reductions. Global prospects appear bleak: the International Labor Organization estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic can raise the number of unemployed people by almost 25 million worldwide.

However, as shown by Jooble’s job search statistics, the actual dismissal rate is below the expected level. Instead, the interest in job search from candidates has decreased by 50%, and that is just for the last three weeks.

There is a clear correlation between the decisions of different countries’ governments on the introduction of strong quarantine measures and the decline of the vacancy search activity.

On the other hand, while the number of available job offerings (that is, vacancies available on a particular calendar day) does not stay the same in most European countries and the USA, it declines slower than candidates’ job search activity.

It means that people stop seeking jobs faster than companies dismiss employees and reduce workforce.

The largest numbers of available job openings are in the British and Canadian markets – in the fields of project management, software development, business development, and accounting. In Italy, Spain, and Germany, the demand for salespersons and support agents, mechanics, drivers, warehouse workers, and administrators is very high.

There are also some changes in how people look for jobs during the quarantine. For example, in Spain, instead of the request “cleaning,” people type in “hospital cleaning.” In Italy, the request “child care” gave way to searches for delivery jobs, and in the UK, “medicine delivery driver” grew to be the second most popular search input.

Another trend is moving online. In addition to traditional online tutoring and freelancing, people now seek opportunities to transfer any skills from offline to teleworking. This is how requests like “online fashion stylist” or “personal online coach” appeared. Candidates are willing to do almost any work online to find a source of income during these hard times.

Ukraine

Whom employers look for

Compared to the same period in 2019, the number of job openings in wholesale and retail trade has risen by 58%. Most of these job openings were posted before the quarantine imposition but remain available, nevertheless. Now, if comparing February and March of 2020, the analysts have noticed no serious changes in this segment.

As against February, in March there appeared noticeably more vacancies from companies which offer transportation and delivery services. The number of job ads in this sphere has increased by 13%. Couriers and drivers have become in high demand recently.

Popular requests

People keep searching for jobs during the quarantine. Candidates try to predict the labor market needs. For example, according to Jooble, the number of requests “taxi driver” increased by 22% between February and March.

People have come to seek delivery jobs more. During March, the number of searches for this kind of work from candidates rose by 91%.

Popular job offers

During the quarantine, the job offers with most views and responses have been:

  • courier,
  • call center operator,
  • translator, copywriter,
  • driver,
  • taxi driver.

Last year the selection was completely different:

  • long-haul truck driver,
  • factory handyman,
  • administrator.

Which searches became less popular

March has seen the number of security guard job queries decrease by 25%.

People have also searched less for sales manager jobs. The searches for this vacancy dropped by 23%, as against February.

People have become less interested in working in Poland. During March the number of queries in this segment declined by 21%.

Demand for remote work

Ukrainians have begun to actively seek remote jobs. The number of telework search queries has soared by 240%.

The most popular queries from candidates as of March were:

  • tester,
  • recruiter,
  • call center operator,
  • SMM manager,
  • accountant,
  • translator.