The IT sector is looking for more and more staff, it is already second in the number of job vacancies

The IT sector in Bulgaria continues to grow the fastest of all, even in times of pandemic. Companies in the industry are constantly looking for new staff, and their number is constantly increasing. This is clear from the analysis of JobTiger's labor market for August this year.

The data show that last month the number of job advertisements in the IT industry increased by as much as 28% compared to July. Compared to August 2020, however, the growth is even more impressive - 160 percent. It is also the only sector in which the demand for staff has been growing steadily since the beginning of 2021. This leads to the situation that the IT sector already ranks second in the number of job postings with a share of 16%, with only "Trade and Sales" is still ahead of him with 21 percent of the total number of job postings. At the same time, however, the IT industry is the first in terms of growth in demand for staff.

According to the share of published job advertisements in third place in August this year, the Manufacturing sector ranks with a 15% share, and the recently ranked Hotel and Restaurant Sector comes down to the fourth with a share of 13%. The order for the other sectors remains the same as in July. The fifth place is for "Logistics and Transport" with 9%, "Administrative and service activities" is sixth with 8.8%, followed by "Construction" with 5%, "Accounting, audit, finance" with 4%, "Health and Pharmacy" by 3.3%, "Marketing and Advertising" by 2.9 percent and "Art" by 1%.

In general, the number of job advertisements in August remained almost unchanged compared to July, with a slight increase of 0.4%. Compared to August 2020, however, the demand for labor has increased by 55 percent. However, there is a redistribution by sector.

As it has already become clear, the IT industry holds the first place in terms of increasing the number of jobs offered. Increased demand for workers is also in the sectors "Marketing and Advertising" - 9%, "Health and Pharmacy" - 8%, "Administrative and service activities" - 7%, "Production" - 5% and "Construction" - 1 per. hundred.

In other sectors of the economy last month there was a decline in ads, and it is the largest in "Hotels and restaurants" -23%. JobTiger explains this fact with the end of the summer season. And they give an example with the months of April and May, when there was a very high growth of supply in this sector - respectively 95% and 36% on a monthly basis, which contrasts August with the decline. However, the proposals in the industry are 32% higher than in August 2020.

After "Hotels and restaurants" in reducing the number of new job offers is observed in the sectors "Logistics and Transport", where a decline of -6%, "Accounting, Auditing, Finance" (-5%), " Administrative and service activities "(-4%) and" Trade and sales "(-1%).

In general, the labor market has seen a slight increase in offers of work from home and / or telecommuting. Thus, last month 10.9% of the total number of ads were for work outside the office, while in the previous July their share was 9.6 percent. Again, most telecommuting staff are in demand in the IT field. These are two out of three (67%) of the ads published by companies in the industry. Second place in this indicator is occupied by the sector "Administrative and service activities", but with a significantly smaller share of ads for teleworking - 13.3%. Very shortly after it ranks "Outsourcing" with 13.1 percent. In Trade and Sales, only 5% of offers in August are for teleworking.

The capital remains a leader in the labor market. The share of job advertisements in Sofia continues to grow, amounting to 45% of the total in August. The share distribution for the other leading regional cities is as follows: Plovdiv (10%), Varna (9%), Burgas (3.4%), Ruse (3.2%) and Stara Zagora (2.6%). Together with Sofia, they account for 73.2% of all proposals in the country.

The number of ads in these cities has increased by 5%, and the dynamics of offers in each of them is different. In Sofia there is a growth of 5%, as well as in Plovdiv. In Stara Zagora the increase is 3 percent, but the absolute leader is Ruse with 15%. In Varna and Burgas, however, there was a decrease in the total number of published job advertisements by 9 and 8%, respectively.

"With the fourth wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, a change in labor market behavior is expected. New anti-epidemic measures are already in force and they will definitely have a negative impact on some sectors, such as Hotels and Restaurants, Event Activities and others. Of course, for others, the trend is unlikely to be negative, such as IT, "Trade and Sales", "Administrative and Service Activities". But in any case, we will face new situations and developments as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, "said JobTiger analysts.