As a number of firms appear to be on the hire, we asked whether our readers had seen this feed through into the general jobs market in the last few weeks.

And here are the results of our quick poll:

51.8% of all respondents said that they had seen no signs that the job market had picked up

48.2% said that they had seen a pick-up.

But there is a big divergence of opinion on this subject between recruitment consultants and jobseekers. 78.9% of recruitment consultants who expressed a view said that they had seen a pick-up in the last few weeks, yet only 32.4% of jobseekers said that they had seen a resurgence of activity.

Reader Comments

1. 'I have noticed that the market has picked up over the last 4 - 8 weeks, although the time-to-hire remains lengthy'.

2. 'It really is early days, but there's been a distinct increase in vacancy levels in the last few weeks. To put it in perspective, however, many of the roles are project-based, or linked to operational risk or control. In other words, it is not a broad pick-up'.

3. 'We've actually started to get jobs phoned in again!'.

4. 'I am not looking for a new job, but I have noticed that the number of 'headhunting' calls has increased recently'.

5. 'As a candidate, I think that is has improved slightly - but it doesn't take much to improve from zero!'.

6. 'Back-office roles are still at a premium. Firms seems to be focusing on hiring revenue generators'.

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