In the first quarter of 2024, the labor market pleased job seekers with record hiring, reduced competition, and an increase in the number of vacancies.
The following figures are the most optimistic in this regard:
- 7.5 thousand online vacancies — the most since July last year.
- 21.2 responses per job in March — the lowest in the last 9 months.
- 20% more vacancies for candidates with no experience.
Let’s take a closer look these indicators
+2 thousand vacancies since the beginning of 2024
As of the beginning of April, the number of online Djinni vacancies was almost 7,600. This is the highest number since July. Even in November, before the seasonal decline in December, there were less than 7,000.
The number of online candidates has been hovering around 90 thousand since the beginning of the year, after many profiles were automatically disabled in December after 90 days of inactivity. Currently, 4.5—5 thousand candidates are added to the search every week, and about the same number deactivate their profiles.
New candidates — 17% less
Among those who have turned on the profile since the fall, the share of reacted candidates has increased significantly, while the share of new candidates has decreased.
For example, in March 2023, 10 thousand new candidates were added to the search, and 8 thousand reactivated their profiles after stopping the search. In March 2024, there were almost 10 thousand reactivated profiles and only 7 thousand new ones.
Reactivated after inactivity — Candidates who disappeared from the search automatically when they did not respond to messages for a long time and then returned.
-35% of vacancies for the quarter
In the first quarter of 2024, recruiters published 23.2 thousand vacancies. This is only 150 less than last quarter. But it is 35% less than in the first quarter of 2023.
Almost 45% of vacancies published in the first quarter require 1 or 2 years of experience. 25% — for candidates with at least 3 years of experience. 22% — for those with at least 5 years of experience.
Experience requirements are usually higher for developer jobs. There are 41% of vacancies with a 5+ year requirement, and less than 4% without.
56% of vacancies published in March required English above intermediate level. Last quarter, this share was almost 60%.
11% of vacancies involve office work. A year ago, it was only 8%. On the other hand, there are fewer vacancies where the candidate has a choice: 31% vs. 39%.
The share of vacancies for developers decreased from 39% to almost 30% over the year. At the same time, the share of vacancies for non-technical specialists has increased significantly — from 29% in the first quarter of 2023 to 35% now.
More vacancies for projects and fullstacks
The Marketing category is still the leader in terms of the number of published vacancies, with a share of almost 13.5%. However, the number of these vacancies decreased slightly over the past quarter. The second place is occupied by the Sales category (5.5%). JavaScript is in third place (5.4%). Next in the top five are Project Manager (5.2%) and Fullstack (4.2%). Their number has grown significantly over the past quarter.
This quarter, there were also more vacancies for designers and data analysts.
21 responses to the vacancy — the least in the last 9 months
One job in March received an average of 21.2 responses. The number was lower only in June last year. Even in December, when the activity is traditionally lower, the competition for one vacancy was higher.
In March, candidates sent a record low number of job responses (not counting December) — almost 238 thousand. This is in part due to the fact that recruiters can now customize the job posting to include who they want to receive responses from. It is also due to the ability to ask control questions that candidates cannot respond to without answering.
The number of candidates sending messages decreased from 36.5 thousand in January to 34.7 thousand in March, as well as the average number of responses they sent from almost 8 to 6.85.
Jobs without experience requirements still receive the most responses per job. However, the average number of responses to one such job over the year decreased from 42 in March last year to 36 in March 2024. While an average of 15 candidates responded to vacancies with 3+ years of experience in March last year, last month it was 20.
Conclusions
The situation on the IT labor market is definitely better this quarter than last, but most indicators are still 25-30% lower than last year.
Salaries in most categories decreased both in hires and vacancies. The median salary of hired developers with no experience dropped below $500.
The good news is that the competition for job responses has slightly decreased, and the number of vacancies is also increasing. The greatest demand is for marketers, sales, and data science.
If these trends continue, we may see a stable 8000+ vacancies in the second quarter,” Djinni summarizes.
It should be noted that we recently compared data from DOU, Djinni, and work.ua in this article These changes are typical for the entire Ukrainian market, not just for IT.