Unprecedented shifts | Is the candidate-led jobs market really over?

Since the pandemic, we have seen major shifts in the working world and UK job market.

It seems almost a distant memory of employers having large swaths of desperate candidates apply to a single role before the pandemic, with managers being able to have their pick of any person. From the perspective of workers, the job market was cruel and competitive, and if you were actively seeking a role, you could expect many rejections and a long journey ahead of you.

In recent times, the job market has been characterised as more candidate-driven, turning the tables on the employee-owned market we had gotten so used to. There are many complex factors to why this shift has happened, but most notably the pandemic accelerated changes to global work models and people’s priorities and attitudes to work altered.

Some of these phenomena include the ‘Great Resignation’ whereby employees voluntarily resigned from their jobs due to job dissatisfaction, ‘Quiet Quitting’ which saw many only doing the minimum requirements of their job, and workers deciding to retire early or work for themselves – all of these having a tremendous impact on skilled labour shortages across most sectors.