The universal view is that the market was tough in 2024. Indeed, the past 24 months have been a grind for most.

But not all markets perform equally.

We know this, but we often ignore or deny it because recruiters are infamous for creating perceptions that suit our worldview.

Here are the facts.

(For which I thank the wise Nigel Harse of Staffing Industry Metrics)

These numbers are for Australia, but sector performance is often consistent across geographies. The overriding point, however, is you are not “at the mercy of the market“. You can and must respond to the market because people are still getting hired – every day -everywhere. We need to focus less on ‘the market‘ and more on our share of the market. There is always a big chunk of the pie we do not have.

So here are the facts.

Down

These are the sectors that really declined over the past 24 months. So, if you held your numbers in these markets, you did a magnificent job. You almost certainly increased your market share.

The Engineering and Technical Services Temp and Contract sector steadily declined throughout 2023. Things stabilised in the first half of 2024; maybe even the slightest of upticks was felt, but that proved to be a false dawn, and the last few months of 2024 were dismal for this vertical.

Engineering and Technical Services Permanent Recruitment was a basket case. To be fair, 2023 was reasonably stable. However, 2024 was a long, steep downhill slide. Very tough indeed.

The ICT Services market woes have been well documented, but the data makes interesting reading. ICT Temp and Contract actually grew well in 2023, but 2024 signalled a rapid and prolonged decline.

The pattern in the ICT Services Perm market was depressing. For 24 months, it has been down, down, down.

There is a stark difference between Temp and Perm in Business and Professional Services recruitment. Here we look at Permanent Recruitment, which held its own for the first half of 2023 but has been very negative since then. See below for how different it was for the Temp market in this sector.

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Up!

Let’s look at the sectors that did comparatively well over the past two years.

If you are in these sectors, you need to have seen your numbers hold up against previous years and even grow.

Surprisingly, Business and Professional Services Temp, Contract and Locum sales climbed steeply in 2023 and held their own in 2024.

This contrasts with anecdotal feedback from recruiters in the UK and Australia. Many in this area have gone backward over this period, and these recruiters need to really examine if they have changed tactics to get their share. Certainly, someone else has!

Health Services has had a stellar rise in the Temp, Contract and Locum area. Pretty much continuous growth for two years, with maybe a slight plateau in the last quarter of 2024

Health Services recruitment for Permanent sales stagnated in the first half of 2023, but it has been on a healthy (See what I did there?) and prolonged rise since then.

The excellent data in this blog is not the primary point of the article. What I encourage recruiters to do is be honest about their performance.

I must have spoken to thousands of recruiters worldwide last year, face-to-face and via digital communications. The consistent theme is that they cannot do well because of ‘the market’.

The truth is that the market is soft, but it’s not a recession. Some of my greyer-haired readers will be able to tell many tales about actual recessions and what a ‘challenging market’ is actually like. I’m not denying how tough it is now; the stress and grind are real.

However, repeating what you’ve always done and expecting to get the same outcome when the market has changed is foolish.

You need to change tactics, learn new skills, and approach things differently. Then, you have to measure yourself against the benchmark, which this article will help you do. Success is closer than you think!

I have selected only some sectors from the data for this article. For more details, contact Nigel Harse and look at his LinkedIn post here.

Also, check out the website of Staffing Industry Metrics.

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