Online job advertisements are booming and reaching record levels

Thanks to high demand for management and executive positions, more and more Swiss people are clicking on job advertisements placed on the Internet. The Jobpilot index rose to 134 points in January 2007. This exceeds the previous peak value from the previous quarter by 4 points and is the third peak in a row. The number of jobs on offer has risen both on the job exchanges and on companies' own websites and is far higher than when the index was launched in the boom phase at the beginning of 2001. The index published by Monster.ch is compiled by the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland together with the University of Zurich. The sub-index for the supply on specialized job sites improved by 2 points to 115 points compared to October 2006. The number of vacancies on company recruitment websites rose by 8 points to 172, reaching a record high for the fourth time in a row. The occupational groups of management and executive positions (+44 points), professions in personal care, cleaning and housekeeping (+28 points), technical and scientific professions (+12 points), business services, consulting, legal professions (+12 points) and professions in transportation, warehousing and security (+12 points) have seen particular growth. In contrast, online job vacancies only declined in the occupational groups of commercial and industrial occupations (-5 points) and IT and telecommunications occupations (-4 points).
For comparison with the development in the print media, the advertising statistics of the Advertising Media Research Institute (WEMF) are used as a basis for measuring job vacancies in the daily press. The standardized print index calculated by the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, which is directly comparable with the Jobpilot index, rose by 3 points to 46 points between November and January compared to the previous quarter.