Original online job ads in August 2018 were down 24 per cent year-on-year (YoY) – despite a six per cent increase in official job ads in June-August 2018. However, there was notably higher advertising activity for legal professionals (+11 per cent) and in occupations with high churn and/or high dependency on non-UK nationals: sales assistants (+11 per cent), drivers (+6 per cent), call/contact centre workers (+5 per cent), teaching assistants (+9 per cent), pharmacy workers (+27 per cent) and nurses (+9 per cent).
At c.1.98m in August 2018, the number of original job ads captured by Innovantage was 24 per cent lower than in the same month last year and 21 per cent lower than in August 2016.
- In addition, 0.48m reposts of previous adverts were captured – suggesting that the role was unfilled via the original post and/or it was a role that an employer continually advertises. This equated to 25 per cent of the volume of original ads posted.
- At 2.46 million, the combined total of original job ads and reposts 35 per cent lower than in August 2017, and 25 per cent lower than in Aug 2016.
Set into context of the most recent total number of UK workforce jobs (35.2m in June 2018), the workforce jobs total was just 0.4 per cent (133k) higher than a year earlier and 1.7 per cent (584k) higher than in June 2016 and of the official ONS vacancy number for the quarter ending August 2018 (833k), UK vacancy numbers were 6 per cent higher than the figure one year earlier and 11 per cent higher than in June-Aug 2016.
For each official vacancy, employers and their intermediaries posted 2.4 original jobs ads in Aug 2018 (a ratio of 2.4 to 1):
- This was notably lower than the ratio of 3.3 to 1 a year earlier.
- The ratio of total ads (including reposts) to official vacancies was 3.0 to 1 in August 2018:
This was, again, significantly down from 4.2 to 1 in August 2017.
Engagement status: 27 per cent of original ads, where the engagement status was specified, were for contingent opportunities
- There were 1,023k original ads (52 per cent) specifying a permanent opportunity in August 2018:
- This was 31 per cent lower than the figure recorded in August 2017, when perm equated to 57 per cent of all original ads.
- 73 per cent of all original ads, where the engagement status was specified, were for permanent opportunities.
- There were 384k ads (19.4 per cent) specifying a contract or temporary opportunity in August 2018:
- This was 23 per cent lower than the figure recorded in August 2017, when 19 per cent of ads specified a contingent opportunity.
- There was a 23 per cent fall in the number of ads highlighting that work was temporary, whilst there was a 22 per cent fall in contract opportunities.
- 27 per cent of all original ads, where the engagement status was specified, were for contingent opportunities.
- 28 per cent of original ads in August 2018 did not carry any detail of engagement status:
- This was up from 23 per cent in August 2017.
