Having a look at the @adzuna data on job postings, published on @ONS . Fascinating stuff. At the headline level, UK job postings were 2/3 of normal levels in Mid October. Impressive labour market resilience given the circumstances

The dataset does include NI, but there were methodology changes in 2019 and 2020 - so we can't draw too much from it for the local labour market. Although the data is still useful to provide insight on the UK sector recovery

First the good news - in a small number of areas hiring is above normal levels. A consequence of consumers shifting spending patterns towards online shopping - and tallies with the visible increase recently in delivery vans

Hiring in staple public services of health and education seem to have held up well (health and education comprise around 1/4 jobs in NI)

Wholesale and retail had shown signs of recovery, but it has started to level off. It does not appear that we will get the usual seasonal boost in jobs this year. (wholesale and retail accounts for 16% of jobs in NI)

Job postings in Catering and hospitality remain well short of normal levels - and the usual seasonal boost in this sector will not occur (the accommodation and food sector accounts for around 1/20 jobs in NI)

Production sectors have recovered impressively (Manufacturing and construction account for 17% of jobs in NI)

IT jobs showing good signs of recovery - perhaps increased remote working has generated a greater need for tech support (the Information and Communication sector accounts for 3% of jobs in NI)

Good signs of recovery for engineering posts - tallies with the number of manufacturing job postings

Professional services & banking (7% of NI jobs) may not be at the top of the list of sectors where job losses are expected - but hiring slowed considerably and has not picked up. Recruitment freezes will hold back job creation into next year.

A varied story - some areas of the labour market doing very well, others better that you would think, and others worse than you would think. (summary below)

The closest we have to this data in NI is the @Economy_NI jobs posting bulletin. In September postings were 80% of the average of the past 3 years.

There are lots of caveats around this data. But remain useful indicators. A reasonable assessment is that hiring rates are somewhere between 2/3 - 4/5 of normal -an important consideration for assessing how many of the impending job losses will lead to long spells in unemployment