We regularly update this report to track the pandemic’s effects on the labour market. 

Job postings on Indeed Ireland continue to rise. Job postings — a real-time measure of labour market activity — were 21.6% above the 1 February, 2020, pre-pandemic baseline, seasonally adjusted, as of 13 August, 2021. The headline indicator rose 4.1 percentage points since the last update to 16 July. That represents a cooling in the pace of growth following an 11 percentage point gain in the previous four-week period. 

A line graph titled “Job postings on Indeed Ireland”
A line graph titled “Job postings on Indeed Ireland” showing the percentage change in job postings on Indeed Ireland since 01 Feb 2020, seasonally adjusted, to 13 Aug 2021. There was a 21.6% change in job postings on Indeed Ireland from 01 Feb 2020 to 13 Aug 2021.

Cleaning, medical information and food service on the rise 

Over the last four weeks, the strongest improvements in job posting trends were seen for the cleaning & sanitation and medical information categories. 

Food preparation & service was also on the upswing amid the reopening of indoor hospitality. Retail, agriculture & forestry, driving and loading & stocking all saw gains.  

Sports, therapy and physicians & surgeons saw the biggest deteriorations. 

Table titled “Cleaning & sanitation growth.”
Table titled “Cleaning & sanitation growth.” Indeed compared the percent change in Irish job postings, between 01 February, 2020, and 13 Aug 2021 across various sectors divided into sections “strongest performers,” and “weakest performers.” The strongest performers were the cleaning & sanitation, medical information and food preparation & service sectors, while the weakest performers were sports, therapy and physicians & surgeons.

Kildare and Galway have strongest recoveries

Looking at trends in the five largest counties by job posting volume, County Kildare leads the recovery, with job postings 41% above the baseline. Galway is close behind in second at 39%. 

Limerick and Dublin are laggards, with job postings only 1% and 8% above the baseline respectively. 

A line graph titled “Kildare leads job posting recovery” showing a breakdown of the percentage change in job postings on Indeed Ireland since 01 Feb 2020, seasonally adjusted, to 13 Aug 2021, by the five largest counties by job posting volume. Kildare had the highest increase at 41%, while Limerick was the weakest performer at 1%.

We will continue to provide regular updates on these trends as the situation evolves. We also host the data behind the postings trends plots on Github as downloadable CSV files. Typically, the site will be updated with the latest data one day after the respective Hiring Lab tracker is published.

Methodology

All figures in this blog post are the percentage change in seasonally-adjusted job postings since 1 February, 2020, using a seven-day trailing average. 1 February, 2020, is our pre-pandemic baseline. We seasonally adjust each series based on historical patterns in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Each series, including the national trend, occupational sectors, and sub-national geographies, is seasonally adjusted separately. We adopted this new methodology in January 2021. 

The number of job postings on Indeed.com, whether related to paid or unpaid job solicitations, is not indicative of potential revenue or earnings of Indeed, which comprises a significant percentage of the HR Technology segment of its parent company, Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd. Job posting numbers are provided for information purposes only and should not be viewed as an indicator of performance of Indeed or Recruit. Please refer to the Recruit Holdings investor relations website and regulatory filings in Japan for more detailed information on revenue generation by Recruit’s HR Technology segment.