Indeed’s analytics’ team scrutinised the top five fastest-growing search terms across eight countries to provide a picture of the types of jobs that experienced the highest spikes in interest by jobseekers, and those that saw the greatest declines in demand. 

Reflecting the country’s preoccupation with Brexit, in the UK the search term that saw the biggest rise was ‘government adviser’, up by 2,730%.

Despite thousands of unfilled job vacancies, there is evidence of strong interest in working in the NHS (pictured), with searches for ‘NHS hospital’ up 851%, followed by Network Rail (+174%), possibly influenced by newspaper coverage of high salaries in the rail sector.

In contrast, the continuing turmoil on the UK High Street is reflected in an 86% decline in searches for ‘retail assistant’.

Analysis of US job searches reveals the strength of the flexible labour market and the Gig economy, with massive rises in searches for ‘Gigs’ up by more than 17,000% and ‘vacation tester’, which rose more than 3,000%. In contrast to the UK searches, ‘retail’ rose by more than 2,800%, possibly as a result of department store chain Sears’ employees looking for a new job in retail after the company announced that it was closing with the loss of 64,000 jobs.

India’s burgeoning tech sector is reflected in the rise in search terms such as ‘blockchain’ up 687%, and ‘robotics’, which more than trebled (+233%).

In Germany, more traditional jobs continued to be much in demand, with ‘chief cook’ and ‘shop assistant’ taking the top two places, up 2,890% and 1,496% respectively. However, the influence of new media can also be detected, with a 1,381% spike in searches for ‘Instagram’.

In Australia, there was evidence that efforts by mining companies to attract more women were paying off, with searches for ‘female mining’ up by more than 200%.

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the introduction of the GDPR legislation, which was very much on the mind of UK recruiters at the start of the year, is reflected in a 1,912% spike in searches for data protection officer.

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