Recruiters can find themselves in a difficult position. Less and less job offers for them
Employers are hiring, the number of advertisements has not fallen significantly compared to last year’s data. It is interesting that the time needed to look for a job by those who have so far assessed other candidates, i.e. HR employees, has increased. The labor market survey shows that employers are ready to offer employees additional benefits, but their expectations towards candidates are also growing.
The labor market is unthreatened: employers are still looking for new employees, and the number of offers in July 2023 fell by only 1%. compared to July last year. Last month, HR specialists, IT specialists, financiers and lawyers were less frequently sought after, according to the report “Job offers in Poland. Monitoring of recruitment processes on the Polish labor market”, prepared by Grand Thornton.
Employers don’t fire because it costs them too much
– The labor market has reached a state of equilibrium. The number of new recruitment processes in recent months is almost identical to the same period last year. It seems that the period of adjustment of the labor market to the new conditions – high inflation, high operating costs, an increase in the number of job candidates resulting from the war in Ukraine – has ended – said Maciej Michalewski, head of the Element company, which collaborated on the preparation of the report.
Although the market has cooled down in recent months, it is mainly caused not so much by redundancies as by the decreasing number of new jobs and vacancies, as well as a slight decline in wage growth. Laying off employees is a last resort, which employers decide on only when it is really necessary. They know that when the economy improves, they may have difficulties filling positions and training employees.
Labor market. Who was hiring and who was firing
According to the report, in July 2023, in most of the surveyed professions, a smaller number of job offers was recorded on an annual basis. The biggest drop affected the HR industry – employers published a 42 percent decrease. fewer offers than in July last year. IT specialists (-34%), financiers (-22%), lawyers (-18%) and marketers (-15%) were also less frequently sought after. On the other hand, higher demand was observed in industries such as medical care (2%) and miscellaneous manual work (1%).
Employers know that candidates must be tempted by extras. On average, there are as many as 6.6 benefits per advertisement. The most popular are: training (86% of advertisements), medical package (65% of advertisements), high salary (64%), sports package (54%).
However, with additional benefits comes rising expectations. The authors of the study report that they have never been so high before. The most sought after employees are characterized by: experience (84%), education (51%), availability (39%), language skills (38%).
“This shows that the economy is doing well and the demand for workers remains strong. Secondly, employers are starting to demand more and more from candidates. Even at the height of the pandemic, when they greatly reduced recruitment needs, they did not impose so many requirements on employees. This suggests that employers, although they are still developing rapidly and need people to work, are under cost pressure and try to do it as effectively as possible, i.e. if they employ employees, they look at them well during recruitment and have clearly higher expectations of them than a few months ago,” commented Magdalena Marcinowska from Grant Thornton.
