Seasonal Hiring and Job Applications Both Increase

The United States eQuest Employment Index showed continued positive movement in the recruitment space moving forward to 102.44 from 102.03. This gain was achieved in November with strong hiring in the retail and additional season positions. The additional job posting were accompanied by an increase in applicant traffic which somewhat slowed the index growth.

Outside of the retail industry the number of new job requisitions was spread across a wide span of industries in the US demonstrating continued consistency of minimal but steady growth. The healthcare industry again showed the strong growth in both regions through the month with a significant increase in overall job postings. Production and manufacturing-based industries continue to occupy the bottom of the Employment Index driven by a continued lack of a significant number of new positions being added to the marketplace. Geographically, states with the highest hiring demand in November were Idaho, New Mexico and Arizona while Missouri, Mississippi and Alabama showed the lowest demand indices.

The United Kingdom saw an expected uptick in job postings but this was again reversed by a larger increase in the applicant traffic across the region. The result was a small decline in the in the UK Index from 98.38 to 98.92. Growth has remained consistent across most industries throughout the year in the UK, however the results have varied greatly regionally. London continues to make the greatest gains in both posting and applicant traffic as the seasonal hiring has had the most positive effect. Eden, East Devon and Ryedale again posted the highest level of employee demand, while Nottingham, Kingston upon Hull and Liverpool remained at the bottom of the regional list for candidate demand.

“There is a positive sign in both regions as there was a significant increase in the posting volume across the majority of the segments”, said Mike Pauletich, Executive Vice President of Global Alliance and Customer Success for eQuest. “However, the other trend starting to show is an increase in the number of applicants, potentially entering back into the market now with more positions available. For this reason eQuest expects the Index to continue creeping slowly upward over the next months and not accelerate too quickly over the winter.”