Signs of a recovery in recruitment in travel are being seen although vacancy numbers from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic are 94% down this year.
Latest figures reported by C&M Executive Recruitment in its Travel Salary Index have revealed the decimation in travel recruitment between April and November.
The C&M index looks at all new travel jobs registered with the companies during the period.
Vacancy numbers remained very low throughout the eight-month period, with consistent falls year-on-year of at least 88% each month since April.
However, C&M said new vacancy volumes have increased in recent months, with September to November seeing twice the number of new roles created than between April and June.
Despite the number of redundancies made within the industry this year, there has also been a large fall in the number of new candidates searching for roles.
Overall, the volume of new job seekers has fallen by 53% since April compared to the same period last year, although there have been significant monthly fluctuations.
Candidate numbers fell 75% in April, 76% in May and 62% in June before recovering to just 11% down in July.
However, this was followed by decreases of 35% in August, 42% in September, 65% in October and 49% in November.
Despite the slump in vacancies and job seekers salaries for new jobs in travel have been resilient.
On average new travel jobs offered a salary of £28,504 between April and November 2020, up by 0.19% (or £53) from the same months in 2019.
Standard travel jobs (those paying up to £40,000) fell by 2.78% between April and November to an average of £24,368.
Barbara Kolosinska, Director at C&M Travel Recruitment and C&M Executive Recruitment, said:
“We’ve experienced several global events in recent decades, but there truly has never been a more devastating few months for our industry than those that we have witnessed this year.
“With a 94% reduction in travel vacancies since April, it has been an extremely testing time for us all, with some great talent having no choice but to leave the industry due to the lack of available positions.
“Thankfully, things appear to be improving and there are many reasons to feel increasingly positive.
“As well as the vaccine being rolled out, we are seeing incredibly encouraging figures from the first two weeks of December, suggesting this may become C&M’s busiest month since the pandemic began.
“A substantial recovery for travel recruitment will, of course, take some time, but it does look like we will be ending the year on a somewhat positive note.”