Jobfeed may be a rich source of sales data, but those numbers can also give us a hint of the overall health of the UK job market. In this article, we consider how sample market data can be used to plan short-term business development goals.
Followers of our LinkedIn page will be familiar with these graphical updates, which we post every few days.
For a bit of variety, we have decided to place two together, in a head-to-head.
These infographics take data from eBoss' Jobfeed feature, which collects job posts from across the web and uploads them to users' desktops in real time.
We post these infographics to highlight the competitive advantage that Jobfeed users have when recruiting. But there is a wider story in the figures, too. The real-time job market data gives a snapshot of the health – and changes – within the UK's recruitment landscape at any given time.
Although we rarely look at these market movements in our social media updates, this article will take a sample of some of the Jobfeed data and consider the emerging trends that may be extracted from it.
The head-to-head is fairly apparent: job creation has accelerated during the period of study.
Our 30 Day snapshot finds a 41.9% increase in the total number of jobs in September over May.
The weekly snapshot (which compares 22/05-29/05 with 25/08-01/09) also finds a clear rise in vacancies. Though this time, the increase is a little less: up by just over a fifth (20.9%).
The daily figures tell a different story. Both "Today's jobs" and the past 24 hours show a marked decrease in job creation since May. But how valuable is this data? Taken alone, it is just a snapshot of a single day. It tells us very little. But, repeated over time, perhaps we can also glean some useful information from these short-term insights?
The first set of figures were pulled from the system on a Friday; the more recent numbers were taken on a Tuesday. Does this discrepancy highlight random chance? Or is there a consistent pattern whereby employers in your sector post more jobs at certain times of the week? With continued observation of the data, you will be able to discern genuine job market trends from the “noise” of random data. And you will begin to plan a more efficient schedule around this information.
This is not the primary reason why most users choose Jobfeed. But it is an example of one of the hidden benefits connected to access of market Big Data. There are many more…
