Hiring picks up in September: LinkedIn

Hiring is witnessing a significant recovery as businesses begin to slowly reopen, according to LinkedIn’s recent ‘Labour Market Update.’

Hiring has reached 30 per cent year-on-year at the end of September, witnessing an 18 percentage points climb when compared to August 2020, as per the report.

Earlier in the year, hiring had declined to -50 per cent year-on-year in Aprilbefore starting to slowly recover. In late July, it crossed the 0 per cent mark and continued increasing, reaching 12 per cent in August. It further increased by 18 per cent in September.

“As businesses and companies continue reopening, we expect recovery to continue as well,” LinkedIn said.

Competition remains high

As hiring recovers, competition for jobs remained the same as August 2020 in September. Competition for jobs was 30 per cent higher when compared to last year.

“However, after nearly doubling in the middle of 2020, the applications per job dropped down 1.3x in August and stayed at a similar level in September,” the report said.

The hiring recovery this year has been led by the technology sector. However, hiring in non-tech sectors is also on the path to recovery, as per the report.

“Earlier this year, during the height of lockdowns, those without digital skills were more affected by the hiring dips compared to those with disruptive digital skills (such as AI and Robotics),” the report said.

“Recovery was also faster for disruptive digital talent, but in recent months, this gap has started to narrow from over 20 percentage points difference in April and May to 2 percentage points difference in September. This possibly reflects the recovery of non-tech sectors,” it added.

Stress on sectors most impacted by the pandemic, such as recreation and travel, is also reducing. Employees in these segments were likely to seek jobs in other sectors. People were 4.2 times more likely to look for jobs in a different sectorearlier this year when compared to pre-Covid levels. This stress, however, has abated from June 2020, where the likelihood was as high as 6.8 times. The stress for the retail sector has reduced from 2.4 times to 1.1 times in September, further indicating a positive sentiment in these sectors.