Where are the jobs?

ROZEE.PK finds out what the employers are looking for.

KARACHI:

Entering the labour force as an ‘unemployed citizen’ is a daunting prospect for every graduate, pair that with Pakistan, and you have a serious Nightmare on Elm Street scenario. Labour force survey of Pakistan paints quite a hunky-dory picture: 6% unemployment rate in the previous year, which makes one wonder, where is the lucky 94%?

ROZEE.PK’s recent survey draws a linear trend over the past two years for the applications received per job posting in various functional areas. Approximately 8.14 million job applications were analysed to determine which of the functional areas invited the most attention for the users and whether the respective field created enough opportunities to meet the supply.

The purpose of the survey is to enlighten all the prospective job-seekers to tap into the market gaps that are under-supplied and to inform prospective employers about the level of attractiveness the job’s functional area represents to the job-seeker.

ROZEE.PK’s survey analyses 63 such unique functions where employers are seeking labour and where they are not. Some 46% of these are under threat of being over-supplied (excessively in some instances) by labour force. Functional areas including accounting & finance, procurement, sales and training & development have shown a consistent oversupply of labor over the years and will continue to do so.

This increase in applications received to job postings could be attributed to two factors: one, the decline in the jobs being posted within the category (as seen in the functional area of sales and training & development), showing a higher labour supply but a diminishing demand of labour over the years; and two, the attractiveness the job title entails to the job-seekers.  The average job postings per month have been consistent through most of the functional areas, whereas the applications being received is creeping up.

The other 54% functional areas where over the last two years the application per job ratio has declined include project management, database administrator, systems analyst and human resource. With time the ratio has declined (sharply in the case of project management) that could again imply two theories: Increase in job positions (meaning higher labour demand) and decline in labour supply that meets the employers criteria.

Although the rate of job postings has increased over time, yet the rate of applications being received over time doesn’t mirror the rise. Hence, this causes a sharp decline in applications received over time and signals an under-supply of labour within these functional areas. Employers pay heed: these areas are clearly not attracting talent like the rest, and the root of the problem lies in two factors: one, the employer brand itself isn’t attractive enough to gauge response from the job-seeker to its job placement; and two, there isn’t sufficiently trained labour in the market that could fill this under-supplied functional area. For potential job-seekers, this is an opportunity for them to tap into the gaps in the labour market where employers are actively seeking talent. On the other hand, for employers that are finding it hard to gauge positive job-seeker response in certain functional areas, it is recommended to either train or take necessary measures to improve their employer brand awareness.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 13^th, 2012.