The number of vacancies in London Employment Monitor recorded a 9% increase in June, compared to May, but it was 7% lower than June 2007.

The number of candidates looking for job opportunities increased 6%, making the total number of jobseekers 17% higher than the previous year.

Jobseekers are taking an average of 58.8 days to secure a new position. Tom Forrest, association director of Joslin Rowe Financial, told Recruiter: “Clients are looking at more CVs and doing more interviews, and because there are more candidates around it is taking longer to get jobs to completion,” adding that Joslin Rowe had experienced an increase in the number of placements during June.

Robert Thesiger, chief executive officer of Morgan McKinley’s parent company Imprint said: “The slower pace of recruitment adopted by a number of firms over the past six months combined with higher levels of staff turnover has led to a slight increase in the number of replacement hiring organizations undertaken last month.”