Significant fall in February job postings despite skills shortages

Continued labour shortages caused by a ‘smaller active workforce’ and skills shortages were behind a much lower number of job postings in February.

The number of active postings in February 2024 was 1,873,386, substantially fewer than a year ago – 2.5 million. However, this was still ahead of the figure for February 2020 (1.57 million) in the month before Covid restrictions were introduced in the UK.

According to the latest Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) and Lightcast Labour Market Tracker there were 810,651 new job postings in February 2024 – a 5.5% fall from January. The figure represents a weakening of the trend of recent years but still, said the REC, represented “a remarkable position for a time where the economy has been in recession.”

Many of the top cities and towns with the highest number of job postings were South and North Yorkshire and Northern Ireland. Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham (+28.2%), York (+23.8%) and Belfast (22.8%) had the highest growth in job postings when compared with January 2024.

Across the UK, north and north-east Lincolnshire (18.6%), Wakefield (16.9%) and Hackney and Newham in east London (16.5%) also had high growth in job postings when compared with January 2024.

The number of active job postings in Scotland grew by 1.2%, a lower rate than the UK-wide figure. Six of the bottom 10 areas with the lowest growth were in Scotland. This suggested that private sector investment and growth “should be a priority for Holyrood this spring,” said REC chief executive Neil Carberry.

However, the UK government as a whole needed to adopt a workforce strategy that would increase growth and prosperity, said Carberry, adding “yet too many politicians are ducking the issue”.

He said: “Talking about boosting GDP per capita is all very well, but it requires reforms to skills policies, taxation, regulation and infrastructure that have been overlooked in this parliament. We could unlock £39bn of growth annually just by taking this challenge on.”

Occupations with notable increases in adverts in February 2024 include authors, writers and translators (+67.5%), window cleaners (+38.1%), and clothing, fashion and accessories designers (+28.2%).

There was also growing demand for driving instructors (+27.4%), gardeners and landscape gardeners (+26.0%) and data entry administrators (+24.9%).

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Carberry said for companies the figures were “a timely reminder that hiring is likely to remain challenging, especially as growth picks up.”

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