Applications per job have increased by over 20% on average since October.

A report in the UK earlier this month has said that as many as one in four people are actively considering seeking a new job.

The report, by recruitment firm Randstad UK found that 69% of them were feeling confident about moving to a new role in the next few months, with 24% planning a change within three to six months.

This got us wondering how many people on the island are also considering seeking new pastures? To find out, we spoke to Manx recruitment agency Paragon about what increase they have seen on the island.

Director Debbie Scrimshaw told gef that Paragon had seen a ‘42% increase in our usual levels of active candidate registrations from early June 2021’, this was followed by another major spike from mid October onwards.

Debbie added: ‘We run a ‘job alert’ function, whereby any user of our website can place a personalised request to receive tailored job alerts to their inbox, without ‘registering’ or actively seeking work. We had historically experienced an increase in job seekers favouring this info-access method pre-pandemic, but this has again dramatically increased above our usual patterns from June 2021 onwards, and corroborates the feedback across our recruiters (permanent and executive) in that we receive enquiries from increasing numbers of ‘passive candidates’ – those not actively registered, seeking work or even unhappy in their current position, but who wish to stay updated and in touch with opportunities, and then engage when a position of interest catches their attention.

‘The accessibility of jobs via online data means that many keep an active eye on the market and jobs/employers/sector of specific interest; whilst you would perhaps not describe these individuals as ‘actively job seeking’, a growing number of the island’s population are seriously exploring opportunities meeting their needs in terms of reward, environment, wellbeing, value and purpose. Whilst it’s impossible to put a figure on this, we would absolutely estimate this is in excess of one in four of the working population.’

Debbie said that applications per job advertised have increased since October 2021 by over 20% on average, particularly at entry level to mid-level recruitment. She added: ‘Employers are in the main taking a more flexible approach to applicant ‘essential and desirable’ criteria, which in essence opens up opportunities to those not necessarily having a direct match to the role profile or job description, but meeting the employer’s requirements in terms of employability skills.’

Gef's article