These two Yorkshire cities have seen job vacancies plummet

The latest job market data from CV-Library shows that job vacancies in Leeds plunged 68 per cent last month - the third biggest drop out of all the cities monitored.

Sheffield saw a 66 per cent decline, making it the seventh worst hit city.

Aberdeen saw the greatest fall, with job vacancies plunging 73 per cent, followed by Leicester with a 69 per cent fall. Leeds was in third place, followed by Bristol (which suffered a 67 per cent fall) , Manchester (down 66.5 per cent) and Birmingham (down 66 per cent). The eighth worst hit city was Southampton, followed by Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Lee Biggins, founder and CEO of CV-Library, said: “We want to support the nation’s job hunters as much as possible right now, but many businesses are feeling the financial effects of the current crisis. Thousands of companies have put a pause on their hiring plans until there’s more certainty in the market and this clearly isn’t limited to Leeds and Sheffield alone.

“All we can do now is prepare for the recovery and hope that employer confidence picks up over the next few months when lockdown restrictions eventually ease.

“It’s a good time to really think about what you want from your career and what your ideal job would look like. Dust off your old CV and cover letter and make sure they’re up-to-date with your most recent experience.”

The study looked at job market activity throughout April, comparing the findings with the previous month and year to build an understanding of how the UK job market is fairing right now.

When looking at year-on-year data, the findings show that there are 75 per cent less jobs on offer in Leeds than there were a year ago.

In Sheffield, job numbers have fallen 69 per cent year-on-year.

CV-Library also explored the application to job ratio on its site and found that there were 38 applicants for every job in Leeds last month, a 117 per cent rise.

In Sheffield, there were 26 applicants per job (up 75 per cent year-on-year).

This means there is more competition amongst candidates for the roles that are available.

The worst hit areas were Birmingham (47 applications per job), London (41 applicants per job), Leicester (39 applicants per job) and Glasgow and Leeds (38 applicants per job).

Mr Biggins said: “Unfortunately, organisations have had to make some tough decisions over the past six weeks, with ONS figures revealing that two thirds of businesses have placed staff on furlough.

“This means there is a lot more competition for the jobs that are being advertised right now.”

The numbers were sharply down on the figures seen in the first three months of 2020.

According to the first quarter job market report from CV-Library, job adverts in Leeds fell 9.2 per cent during the first three months of the year and in Hull, they fell 5.2 per cent. The national average decline was 4.1 per cent.

In Sheffield, the jobs market fell 3.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2020. Birmingham was the worst hit city with a decline of 9.3 per cent, Leeds was second, Exeter was third with an 8.8 per cent fall and Hull was fourth in the first three months of the year.

CV-Library is one of the UK’s largest online job sites and attracts over 4.3 million unique job seekers every month.

Founded by Lee Biggins in 2000, CV-Library is the UK’s leading independent online job board with a database of over 15 million CVs.