Its hard to believe that 2021 has been in full swing for months and here at SprintHQ, it’s looking nothing like March 2020 did. March marks a full year since Covid-19 breached our borders and everything as we knew, changed overnight.

This time last year, plans were being put aside, offices were boxed up, lights turned down and aircon off – we packed up our monitors and mousepads and headed home to set up shop. Zoom became a Chrome Bookmark, and we ticked the “Stay Signed In” box knowing this would become a new way of life. The virtual pub quiz became the event of the month. Flights were grounded, borders were tightly closed, “quarantine” and “iso” were the buzzword of the century. A new way of life had begun.

Fast forward to March 2021

It is starting to almost feel like pre-covid again…with masks and a lot of hand sanitiser! The city is filling up again. The office lights are back on, there is a line at the cafe for coffee once again!

The Year So Far

As is standard in the recruitment industry, January is often quiet until after Australia Day, but historically, come February, hiring generally ramps up and so too does movement in the marketplace. Well, I am happy to report that we are buzzing here at Sprint with new jobs coming in and candidates looking for their next career move! We have seen that recognisable pattern and February was as busy as ever. In reality, the market had already started looking positive back in October and November.

Without wanting to get too ahead of ourselves, I can confidently say that we are inching towards a familiar place. We are seeing businesses starting to hire with confidence again and great candidates wanting to look at other opportunities within the market. Surprisingly, a lot of the roles in 2021 have come from SMEs (smaller to medium sized businesses and not the big players) and this is very promising. SME’s make up a vast proportion of the Australian economy overall. So if they are hiring, that is a great sign.

We are seeing that contract and temp roles are lagging a little in comparison to previous years and permanent job orders still more favourable. But we believe this is partly due to a knock-on effect of the volume of businesses still working from home (very hard to onboard a temp remotely). We are confident that as more businesses return to their offices in the cities, temps will be required – it’s really only a matter of time. Of course working from home has its perks and preferences, but in order to be truly firing on all cylinders, we need the face to face company and collaboration of others – our teammates.

The Months Ahead

While we continue moving towards a return to what we all once knew, it’s still so important to continue to be cautious, and not get complacent. We are crawling back to normal life, but let’s all continue to do our bit to stay safe. Keep your distance, wash your hands and wear your mask where required. At SprintHQ we are still ensuring we practice all our Covid safe processes.

2020 will be the year that will always go down in history as ‘unforgettable’, but can also be remembered for the triumphs we have achieved and the hardships that we endured. Right now, we are just excited for 2021 and it is so good to be able to say that, it is shaping up very nicely!

Onwards and upwards we say!