The Burrow
Apr 21, 2023
The job market is in a truly interesting place right now, as global economies find their footing after the COVID-19 pandemic forced many businesses to close.
The pandemic got people rethinking their job, the work environment they were in and what they really want from their employers. The ‘Great Resignation’ saw vast swathes of workers quitting their job, with many looking for new work opportunities where they believed their personal and mental wellbeing would be better.1
With this new and sizable cohort of jobseekers, the business insurance experts at Compare the Market wanted to understand which industries people are jobhunting in the most. To do this, we collected online search volume for specific keywords from 2022 from 39 countries for 19 different industries.
The findings are outlined below.
In Australia, different states and territories have legislated requirements for businesses operating in specific industries where they must have certain kinds of business insurance in place. For example, engineers and architects are typically required to hold professional indemnity insurance, depending on which state they operate in.
Regardless of whether business insurance is a legal requirement, it is often a good idea because of how it can protect your business against a variety of unwanted outcomes. These could include public liability lawsuits and compensation, theft, vandalism, fire, storm damage, product liability, cyber-attacks and more.
Compare the Market’s General Manger of General Insurance, Adrian Taylor, notes that workers are standing up for themselves more than ever before, and it may be prudent for businesses to consider a policy that covers management liability.
“Businesses might also want to consider management liability to help cover any issues regarding managers and employees. This helps protect the business and the employees by ensuring there is liability and compensation support in the event of unfair dismissal lawsuits,” says Taylor.
“There is a great opportunity for businesses right now looking to access a growing cohort of jobseekers, but it is still hard to hire new staff. With a lot of focus on getting head counts up its important businesses don’t forget to have support and coverage in place for if things don’t go as expected.”
There are some industries that are more popular in search terms than others when the word “jobs” is added to the end. The top three are:
The term “IT jobs” was the standout search around the world with a search rate of 3.560 per 100,000, showing that IT is an industry that people want to work in. A fairly broad term, Information Technology is a crucial aspect of our modern society and since the pandemic, IT jobs have been in even higher demand than ever before.
Construction was the second most popular industry for job vacancies, being searched at a rate of 2.723 per 100,000 across the 39 different nations. While the pandemic put a slowdown on building and construction, these projects and new ones are now back underway, however many countries are still facing a considerable backlog.2
Hot on the heels of Construction was Healthcare, with a search rate that was just 0.002 less. Similarly to IT and Construction, the global COVID-19 pandemic highlighted just how crucial this industry is.
The full list of industries can be viewed below.
When looking at the most searched industry for each nation individually (using the search rate based on each nation’s own population), there were a few common themes and unique standouts.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that it was the number one most searched industry for jobs across the combined population of all 39 nations, IT was the most popular in 15 countries. Similarly, Construction was the next most common on an individual country level, being the most popular for eight nations out of the 39 we examined.
Australia, France, Iceland and Sweden were unique in that the most searched for industry within those countries was not shared by any other country. In Australia, the industry with the highest search rate per capita was Defence, while in France it was Communications. Heading further north, in Iceland, “Energy jobs” had the highest search rate per capita. Lastly, Sweden was the only nation where Real Estate was the number one most-searched industry.
| Country | Industry | National per capita search rate |
| Australia | Defence | 37.93 |
| Austria | IT | 7.91 |
| Belgium | IT | 5.04 |
| Canada | IT | 7.55 |
| Chile | Mining | 34.19 |
| Czechia | Construction | 8.22 |
| Denmark | Healthcare | 75.86 |
| Estonia | Construction | 13.07 |
| Finland | Construction | 5.71 |
| France | Communications | 2.43 |
| Germany | IT | 4.29 |
| Greece | IT | 2.52 |
| Hungary | Construction | 8.33 |
| Iceland | Energy | 13.33 |
| Ireland | Construction | 17.60 |
| Israel | IT | 1.01 |
| Italy | IT | 0.43 |
| Japan | IT | 0.38 |
| South Korea | Hospitality | 0.17 |
| Latvia | Hospitality | 5.00 |
| Lithuania | IT | 21.85 |
| Luxembourg | Hospitality | 15.00 |
| Mexico | Construction | 0.75 |
| Netherlands | Healthcare | 7.55 |
| New Zealand | Retail | 9.79 |
| Norway | Mining | 3.09 |
| Poland | IT | 5.03 |
| Portugal | IT | 18.81 |
| Slovak Republic | Construction | 8.72 |
| Slovenia | Hospitality | 4.28 |
| Spain | Construction | 0.55 |
| Sweden | Real estate | 15.68 |
| Switzerland | Administration | 18.18 |
| Türkiye | IT | 0.24 |
| United Kingdom | Retail | 11.82 |
| United States of America | IT | 8.09 |
| Brazil | IT | 0.27 |
| Bulgaria | Hospitality | 1.32 |
| Romania | IT | 3.10 |
The table below shows the search rate for all 19 industries based on the population of 39 countries.
| Search terms | Search rate per 100,000 |
| IT jobs | 3.560 |
| Construction jobs | 2.723 |
| Healthcare jobs | 2.721 |
| Retail jobs | 1.662 |
| Real estate jobs | 1.290 |
| Mining jobs | 1.166 |
| Hospitality jobs | 1.070 |
| Education jobs | 1.029 |
| Admin jobs | 0.928 |
| Defence jobs | 0.683 |
| Manufacturing jobs | 0.557 |
| Communication jobs | 0.466 |
| Transportation jobs | 0.330 |
| Industrial jobs | 0.193 |
| Energy jobs | 0.182 |
| Water treatment jobs | 0.133 |
| Creative industries jobs | 0.026 |
| Emergency service jobs | 0.015 |
| Professional service jobs | 0.007 |
Using search terms such as “healthcare jobs”, we found the online monthly search volumes for different industries across 39 different countries. We added these national search volumes together for each industry and then calculated search rate per 100,000 people using the combined population of all 39 countries.
Keyword search volumes were done using for each of the 39 countries in English for all countries. The search volumes were also translated into the main language of non-English speaking nations using Google translate. In these cases, whichever language had the highest search volume was used, for each specific search term.
Keyword volume data was gathered between 17/02/23 and 21/02/23.
Wherever a search term had insufficient data, that term was given a search rate of 0 for the purpose of calculations.
Sources:
1 Australia on the brink of “the Great Resignation’ with 38% of Aussie workers looking for a new job, and the numbers could get higher – PwC ‘What Workers Want’ report. Price Waterhouse Coopers. 2021.
2 Homebuilders Buy Time With Huge Pandemic Backlogs. Conor Sen, Bloomberg. 2023.