17.01.2023

JOB POSTINGS DOWN

December 2022 saw just under 28,000 job postings, down 33% (nearly 14,000 fewer) from November. This is shown by the monthly analysis of a leading career site in Bulgaria (JobTiger).

In the last quarter of last year, the drop was as much as 43%, and it was most noticeable in the last month of 2022.

On an annual basis, however, the number of listings is still 5% higher than in the last month of 2021.

The company that conducted the survey notes that the drastic drop in job offers is not unusual for the last month of the year. Christmas and New Year holidays usually cause work processes to be delayed or suspended for 10-15 days, including recruitment processes.

December saw a solid decline in job postings in every single sector, with the largest decrease in the number of offers in the "Trade and Sales" sector - a drop in postings by 3,360 or 35% compared to November. It is followed by the sectors "Manufacturing" and "Administrative and service activities" (decreases by 36 each), "Hospitality and restaurants" (by 29%), the "IT" sector (by 21%), "Logistics and transport" (by 29%), "Construction" (down 39%), "Health & Pharmacy" (down 33%), "Accounting, Audit, Finance" (down 28%) and "Marketing & Advertising" (down 25%).

On a year-on-year basis, December still saw an increase in job postings in almost all sectors except "IT", where, similar to global trends, there was a drop in job offers by as much as 27% compared to the last month of 2021.

In terms of the share distribution of advertisements by sector, the first place is the "Trade and Sales" sector (with 22%), followed by the "IT" (with 15.3%) and "Production" sectors (with 14.9%).

Like the total number of listings, offers for work from home and/or telecommuting also fell by roughly a third (by 30%). They are about 1,400 fewer than in November and their total number equals about 3,400 or 14.3% of all listings. As a distribution by sector, 66% of this type of proposals are in the "IT" sector, followed by "Administrative and service activities" (13%), the sectors of the outsourcing industry (12%) and "Trade and sales" (5%).

The same trend is observed in the leading regional cities - the total number of advertisements in them has decreased by 33%. The drop in offers in each of them is as follows: Sofia (-32%), Plovdiv (-36%), Varna (-37%), Burgas (-33%), Ruse (-31%) and Stara Zagora (-26%). The number of job offers as share distribution is: Sofia (48%), Plovdiv (10%), Varna (7%), Burgas (3%), Ruse (3%) and Stara Zagora (3%).

The number of job postings suitable for refugees fell by 33% in November - about 700 fewer offers. The total number of this type of ads is about 1,350, which is a 6% share of all ads.

Despite a solid decline in job postings in December, the past year 2022 saw a more active and stable labor market than the previous 2020 and 2021, the analysis of the leading career site concludes.

In total, about 566,000 offers were published last year (including duplicate positions on a monthly basis), which is 14% (just over 69,000) more than in 2021.

Despite the dynamics of recent months, each of the sectors reported growth in listings in 2022. It was greatest in the Hospitality & Restaurant sector (with 16,700 more listings or 25% growth), which managed to recover supply levels from the pre-pandemic period.

After this drastic (albeit usual) drop in job offers in December, JobTiger's expectations are that the first month of the new year will see another surge in job offers.