Comscore Snapshots: online career services in Europe

Reach of career sites/apps within the EU5 region is uneven: in Spain, the UK, and France, over 35% of the digital populations visited career sites in June 2021. On the other hand, in Italy and Germany reach is in the region of 20%. A mix of country-specific factors (importance of informal networks, average duration of job, unemployment rate, etc.) probably explain the between-country discrepancies.

Figure 1. Size of audience of career sites and apps.

Source: Comscore MMX Multi-Platform, Total Audience, June 2021, EU5 region.

In fact, a clue as to why the reach of career sites/apps differs by country lies in the table below: while the number of career services with large audiences (i.e. with a reach exceeding 5%) is roughly similar in all EU5 countries, the number of smaller companies (i.e. with reach between 1% and 5%) differs significantly between countries. In sum, in countries with higher market fragmentation a larger number of companies compete to provide services targeted at specific niches. In countries with higher market concentration, fewer agencies or companies tend to act as one-stop-shops.

Figure 2. Market competitiveness of the career development ecosystem.

Source: Comscore MMX Multi-Platform, Total Audience, June 2021, EU5 region.

For a more granular analysis, we subdivide the career category into two groups of sites: (1) career resources sites, which provide content or services for the following career-related areas - job details, resume posting, career advice, salary information, interview skills, and negotiation skills; and (2) job search sites, which consist of URLs within the major career sites that correspond to the results page presented after conducting a job search. (For example: Indeed.com Job Search, Monster.com Job Search, etc.). Plotting the evolution of traffic to these two groups of online properties shows (see chart below) that while audiences of career resource sites remained relatively constant over time, traffic to job search pages jumped up early in 2021, in line with the winding down of furlough schemes and the re-opening of economies in the region.

The media have already reported that the career prospects of the youth in the EU5 region were particularly hard hit by the pandemic. This is indeed reflected in the data (table below): the proportion of individuals in the 18 to 35 age bracket who visited career sites is significantly higher in most EU5 countries. Women were also disproportionally hit – compared with men, as a much higher proportion of women visited career sites. This is consistent with reports that women’s job prospects were hit harder around the world.

Figure 4. Reach of career sites/apps, by demographic segment.

Source: Comscore MMX Multi-Platform, Total Audience, June 2021, EU5 region.