Olivier says that all the economic bad news has had a damaging effect on business confidence, despite the rate cuts and government economic stimulus.

“Business confidence is at an all time low and the expected benefit of the government’s stimulus package can’t be seen in the sales/ marketing/ retail sector where job ads fell 6% in February.  Hopefully the trades and building sectors will get a boost when spending on infrastructure kicks in later this year.

“It's gone from a white collar recession through to a blue collar recession. We're seeing the effect of cutbacks in the car industry and apparel. All sectors fell in February except Financial Services and Banking (up 1.97%) and Legal (up 1.28%).”

This is a more damning figure than January's 12.64% fall, although that was the worst ever recorded.  Over the history of the Olivier Job Index, February is traditionally the month when the market rebounds to November levels of job ads, after the seasonal Christmas and summer downturn.

“In November we averaged 317,381 job ads per week, but by the last week in February we counted just 240,924. Even worse, the first week of February had started with 256,060 job ads and that fell consistently over the four weeks.”

The job boards are reporting there are more active job seekers visiting them. “This shows the imbalance in the market – clearly this is a buyers not sellers market now.”

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