Engineering vacancies plummet by 72.4% during three months of lockdown

According to the latest quarterly job market report from CV-Library, the UK independent job board, job numbers in the engineering industry plummeted by 74.2% in Q2 2020, compared to the previous year; and by a further 71.4% quarter-on-quarter; as businesses struggled to operate during the global pandemic. 

The job board analysed millions of data points from its site between 1st April and 30th June 2020, to build an understanding of how the UK job market faired during these months. It reveals that despite these drops, average pay actually rose by 6.9% year-on-year; suggesting that organisations are offering fewer vacancies, but with higher pay. 

Lee Biggins, founder and CEO of CV-Library, comments: “It’s no secret that lockdown measures stunted the UK economy and labour market during this period. 

“As a result, businesses had no choice but to put a pause on their hiring plans and make difficult decisions about their workforce. These figures are pretty bleak and naturally, some industries and locations have been more affected by others. What I can say, however, is that the market is already showing signs of recovery this month, albeit it very, very slowly.” 

Interestingly, despite job security being a major concern for many engineering professionals right now, job applications were down by 11.3% year-on-year. 

However, when looking at the average application to job ratio in the industry, this jumped up by a massive 220.8% year-on-year; from 10.2 applications per vacancy in Q2 2019, to 32.9 in Q2 2020. 

Biggins continues: “While applications dropped overall, there were less jobs being advertised and that means there’s a lot more competition for the roles that are available. In addition to this, while the furlough scheme has been a life support to hundreds of thousands of businesses, it does also mean that the national employment rate is possibly higher than it should be right now.  

“As a result, we expect to see applications pick up in the coming months, as more people are forced to look for new jobs. With the government now encouraging businesses to return to the workplace, it will be interesting to see if this has a further impact on the UK job market going forward.”