Many members of the public experienced a difficult time during lockdown as businesses struggled to keep their staff employed. This led to a high number of jobs having to let their employees go during this tough period, meaning that job vacancies were at an all time low in 2020.
However, with lockdown being lifted in 2021 a huge spike in vacancies took place as more jobs became available.
Towards the end of June 2020, pubs and restaurants were given the opportunity to re-open and the jobs that were deserted during lockdown needed to be filled. Vacancy numbers saw a huge increase as business owners looked for potential employees.
Matthew Williamson worked for Fruition Recruitment during the lift of lockdown and said, “it was absolutely crazy, I have never been this busy in my whole recruitment career. We were getting more vacancies than there were candidates for jobs, it was very hard to keep clients happy.”
With the hospitality industry slowly getting back on its feet, job vacancies should steadily build back up and offer a place to people made redundant during the pandemic. Whether people have found new placements or are still looking for jobs, it is clear that Leeds is on track to getting back to normal.
Rebecca Owen manages all ten job centres in Leeds and believes the way the numbers are going shows progress and shows that job vacancy numbers are going in the right direction.
