Agency 2020 Permanent Placement Trends. The facts.

Recently, I shared the telling JobAdder data on new job-orders taken by Recruitment Agencies in 2020 in Australia and New Zealand.

Today, actual permanent placements made.

Empirical data gleaned from many thousands of recruiters across both countries. ( You can get the full JobAdder Report here!)

Permanent placements are the definitive measure of permanent hiring demand, because these are jobs taken, offers made and accepted.

We can see the devastating impact of the Covid pandemic in Quarter 2 2020. Australia placements fell a jaw-dropping 41.6%. In retrospect, we may not be surprised by that number, but as a veteran of 6 recessions, I can tell you that I have never seen a market fall so far, so fast.

                              Permanent Placements: Australia

New Zealand has the same overall pattern, but the timing is a little different.

New Zealand actually went into lockdown at the end of Quarter 1, nationwide. Although it took effect in late March, people knew it was coming, and demand stalled earlier than in Australia, as you can see with the 43.3% drop in permanent placements in Quarter 1, followed by a further drop in Quarter 2.

                                                                                         Permanent Placements: New Zealand

After that, New Zealand bounces back in a similar way to Australia, although the second lockdown (Auckland only) for most of August may well have dampened the Quarter 3 numbers.

Significantly, the Quarter 4 year-on-year comparison shows that permanent demand in Australia was almost back to 2019 levels, while New Zealand was 32% down on the previous year.

I am not prepared to draw a direct link to the New Zealand general election. Still, it is worth noting that the election was in October 2020, and usually hiring demand slows around election time.

Anecdotal evidence is that Quarter 1 2021, has seen a surge in both countries, but we will wait till JobAdder releases their Quarter1 2021 Report to see the facts.

Get the full JobAdder Report here

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