In case you haven’t heard the big job board players are all laying off staff. Indeed, Dice, Jobcase and Talent.com have all shed staff this year.
Last week Ziprecruiter was the latest to announce. According to their SEC filing they will shed 20% of staff, half of which will come from customer service and sales teams:
ZipRecruiter announced a plan to reduce its global headcount by approximately 270 employees, which represents approximately 20% of the Company’s total number of employees prior to the reduction. This action was taken in response to current market conditions and after reducing other discretionary expenses, with a view toward driving long-term efficiency.
Ziprecruiter
As you can read this is in response to “current market conditions“. AKA a hiring slowdown is in effect. But don’t tell that to the U.S. job market because hiring seems to be continuing unabated despite the tech layoffs. May saw over 300k jobs added to the economy.
Its a matter of perspective depending on which industry vertical you belong to. I think at least part of the layoffs is just getting rid of some low performing workers, not just market conditions. Indeed has been hiring like crazy for many years, now they realize they can do without.
I’ve been through a number of hiring slowdowns like this and all I can say is it will rebound at some point. I think this year will be slow through the summer and we’ll see hiring pick back up a little in the fall. As slowdowns go, this one seems to be not that bad compared to previous years.
In the meantime, small niche boards like those in the tech sector should be doubling down on attracting affected workers who lost their jobs. Now’s your chance to get them to come to your site and register or signup for alerts. You should constantly be looking to build your job seeker audience at every possible turn.
Also you may find this time to be beneficial if you need to to hire from within the industry. There are lots of job board sales pros now on the market.
