eQuest Releases Employment Index Results for February 2012

SAN RAMON, CA and LONDON--(Marketwire - Mar 8, 2012) - eQuest today announced its employment findings for February 2012 as published in its Employment Index, which can be viewed in its entirety at:

http://www.equest.com/news/employment-index-us/
http://www.equest.com/news/employment-index-uk/

The United States eQuest Employment Index showed continued positive movement in the recruitment space moving forward to 105.14 from 104.67. The February gain was achieved with a significant increase in overall job postings across most tracked industries but again led by the Banking and Energy sectors. The Government industry was again the industry with the largest move down in the overall rankings. Applicant traffic was also up significantly over the January timeframe which kept the index from moving up even larger in February. The increase in both job posting and applicant volume is a relatively typical change for the January to February period.

The top three Industries in the Unites States for overall job posting volume in February were Energy, Healthcare and Biotech. Production and manufacturing-based industries continue to occupy the bottom of the Employment Index driven by a continued lack of a significant number of new positions being added to the marketplace and a consistent level of higher applicant traffic. Geographically, all states continued to show growth but the largest growth numbers were within states already showing better hiring conditions. The states with the highest hiring demand in February were Idaho, New Mexico and Virginia while Missouri, Mississippi and Alabama continued to show the lowest demand indices.

The United Kingdom ended a 4 month downward trend with a slight Index increase in February due to a slowdown in applicant tracking versus continued stagnant job growth. The end result being the slight uptick in the UK Index from 97.85 to 98.02. While the number reflects a marginal overall increase, the gap between locations that are hiring and those that lack job availability continue to grow. Index values continue to vary widely in the UK ranging from 116.32 at the top to 79.76 at the low end of the spectrum.

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