Whether we like it or not, the pandemic has dramatically changed the way we interact. Moreover, this new reality is likely to stay with us for a long time. We can’t but wonder how the future of labour will look. Specialists from Jooble, the 2nd biggest job search engine worldwide, couldn’t resist looking into trends and data in this sphere to understand the world of work better now and in the future.
Work from home is a thing but not a new normal
Working from home has become one of the rare positive outcomes of the pandemic. It proved productive and time-saving. People commute less and don’t waste time on water cooler chats with colleagues. However, let’s not forget about the downside of the coin. Zoom fatigue and Internet disruptions are still out there. People daily get tons of emails. They spend lots of time on things that could be easily fixed during face-to-face communication. The number of cybersecurity challenges has risen dramatically.
Despite the popular opinion of remote work as the new normal, offline interaction can’t be fully substituted. Jobseekers also confirm this statement. Jooble specialists recorded the surge of ‘’work from home’’ and ‘’work online’’ search queries at the very beginning of the pandemic, i.e. in April 2020. Back in the day, it rose by 230%. Since then, the number of requests has been slowly decreasing. People definitely show a strong interest in remote work. However, they don’t limit themselves to it.
The concept of offline interaction will change. Offices will likely turn into brainstorming centres, where people gather several days per week to discuss and solve urgent issues. Many tasks will be performed remotely. Moreover, workers prefer the flexibility of staying home when needed. As we see, the remote working model has become an indispensable element of the labour culture. However, these days specialists tend to talk about hybrid models. Offline workplaces remain attractive as the pandemic recedes.
Cross country hiring process is high in the data
According to Jooble data, the number of users searching for jobs outside their countries has risen by 13% over the past 6 months. Almost half (44%) of the visitors consider vacancies in different cities within their country. Geographical boundaries have become even less limiting than they used to be.
Another observation done by our specialists is that around 35% of users don’t mention the city/region where they would prefer to work while searching. According to experts, this behaviour may show that people simply pay way less attention to the physical location of their future workplace.
The hiring process becomes more international. It’s beneficial for employers since a rising competition lets them choose the best candidates and pay them reasonable salaries. It also has advantages for employees who can apply their talents literally worldwide thanks to digitalization and globalization.
On the other hand, the subtleties of the onboarding process, keeping remote employees engaged, and asynchronous team management remain challenging for many companies. Although the general tendency to relocate has slowed down due to Covid restrictions, digitally, people keep actively moving and broadening their professional horizons.
Jobseekers can be surprisingly reluctant to look for jobs
Despite the economic downturn caused by the pandemic people don’t rush to take up the first available vacancies and make up for the opportunities lost in 2020. Quite the opposite, the number of job leavers has grown. These are people who decided to quit previous workplaces and look for new opportunities despite the instability of the economic situation. For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only in June the number of job leavers in the USA grew by 164,000 to 942,000. Over the past 4 months, users slowed down their job search by 7% on average compared to the same period in 2020. For example, if Brits boosted their efforts by almost 30%, the French turned out to be 5% less eager to look for new opportunities. Canadians slowed down by 9%, Germans – by nearly 3% (Jooble internal data).
Job seekers started scrutinizing working conditions as to flexibility and work-life balance compliance. They also actively switched to freelance or considered having several part-time jobs. These activities help diversify sources of income to insure oneself against possible staff reduction.
From a work perspective, the post-Covid future looks quite confusing.Here are some takeaways: people will likely work a lot from home, but it’s too early to talk about a complete switch to remote mode. Offline vacancies are still popular among jobseekers, especially in the wake of the pandemic receding.
On the other hand, cross-country hiring is on-trend. Yes, this tendency started long before Covid-19, but today we are observing its surge. With a rapid digital transformation, companies get more opportunities to hire the best talents worldwide without a relocation. Jobseekers themselves seem to be quite relaxed about the physical address of potential employers. Although many problems of remote work are still here, the general tendency is strong.
The last but not the least noteworthy observation is that people are getting more demanding towards potential workplaces. Despite the hardships caused by Covid-19, jobseekers are carefully choosing career opportunities and tend to diversify their income sources. Contrary to the popular opinion that lifting numerous lockdown restrictions will boost the employment search, the situation looks slightly different. These findings let us assume that the hybrid working model with a flexible schedule will become commonplace in the labour market. Teams will become more international since globalization and remote mode let people find jobs all over the world. Finally, job seekers pay more attention to vacancies and are ready to take up part-time or freelance activities to insure themselves in the wake of possible economic hardships.
We want to thank Maria Bohdanovska for this contribution. Maria is a journalist-turned-content manager passionate about finding solutions and explaining difficult things in simple ways. She is working at Jooble, one of the biggest job search engines worldwide. Maria is responsible for developing content strategies and establishing online presence of Jooble.
Sources: http://www.billfrymire.com/gallery/North-America-globe-connect.jpg.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55320156
https://unsplash.com/s/photos/big-city
Author: Ali Neill
As the job board tester and blog editor for the Jobboard Finder, Ali works on job boards from all around the world and keeps a close eye on the recruitment trends thanks to a number of sources, including the website’s social media pages.
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