The past year is one that will go down in history because of the global impact of the coronavirus. Companies closed their offices, trains were never quieter and the job market changed. The virus demanded adaptability from everyone and it made people think. So did our CEO, Han Kolff. Because in this new year where people worldwide are being vaccinated for COVID-19, the world will look different again. For example, how will the job market change in 2021? Kolff shares his predictions.

Impact COVID-19 on external hiring

"The impact of corona on the hiring market for knowledge-intensive positions in 2020 has been limited," Kolff says. "Obviously, in principle we saw a setback in new hiring requests and hours worked. Fortunately, the positive trend gently set in as of May. The number of professionals whose assignments were concretely terminated also remained very limited. Three reasons underlie this; 1) highly educated knowledge workers can perform work at clients largely remotely, 2) they are often employed in business-critical processes of organizations, with the result that these projects simply continued, and 3) government organizations make extensive use of external professionals, they proved to be a stable hiring source at the time of the corona crisis."

Even for "permanent," this picture is supported by CBS figures. At the end of 2019, a record 286 thousand vacancies were open. As a result of the corona crisis there was a decrease of 30 percent, reducing the number by 86 thousand. Nevertheless, at the end of September, the number of open vacancies rose again to 216 thousand. This is expected to have increased further in the last quarter of 2020 and will increase even further in 2021.

Forecast for 2021

"Corona is driving the flexibilization of the labor market in 2021, stemming from the further increasing need for organizations to move with the market, the need to get a grip on hiring and a new boost in digitalization," Kolff says. He explains these three causes as follows:

 

  • By allowing the cost of personnel to move with projects, business pressures, the market and the economy, it is possible to work more cost-efficiently. In addition, among professionals the urge for flexible working is undiminished. Being able to determine their own working hours, work days, assignments and rate is still attractive to many. With the rapidly shrinking life span of skills and the coming and going of many jobs, professionals significantly increase their employability by working for different assignments and companies and training themselves on the job for the next job.
  • Organizations that have a grip on their external hiring know exactly who is being hired at what place in the organization and why. Organizations that did not have that picture at the start of the corona crisis proved less able to move with market developments.
  • Location-based work has proven to be a risk factor. During the crisis, work as we previously knew it changed to mass homeworking, which made the need to automate - unfortunately painfully - obvious. This gives a new boost to the digitization drive of organizations. From this comes more demand for online and IT specialists, who relatively often work on a flexible employment basis.

Kolff argues that service providers who can respond to these needs with relevant data-driven services and a good balance between tech (digitization of processes) and touch (personal contact, good advice) will be the winners of the year.

Finally, Kolff expresses his confidence that "in 2021, the new cabinet to be formed will show the ambition to want to align labor market legislation - with the DBA Act as a hot topic, of course - with the desire for flexibility of clients and professionals, of course with sufficient social security for anyone who wants it."