The gender employment rate gap is at a near-record low, just 8.9%The Government’s recruitment website is undergoing a major change to encourage more direct use by employers, and discourage mass job uploads by other job boards and recruiters.
Universal Jobmatch is the backed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The free recruitment website, which enables job seekers to search for and apply for jobs, has become one of the largest job boards in Europe.
The Government will be limiting the use of bulk uploads of job vacancies by jobs-boards, and will only be allowing employers to use Universal Jobmatch directly.
The Government hopes this change will achieve 3 main goals:
- To improve the service, particularly the visibility of vacancies posted by small and medium employers.
- Remove the practice of daily refreshing adverts done by jobs boards to prioritise their vacancies.
- Remove a lot of duplication – a common issue raised by jobseekers.
Last year, the Universal Jobmatch service reached a peak of 1.3 million job adverts, the vast majority of which (around 75%) came from commercial job boards. This has caused problems for both jobseekers and employers.
Employers, especially SMEs and micro-employers, find their job adverts are quickly lost amongst the sheer volume of job board adverts.
Jobseekers find it a constant frustration being re-directed to other sites, as well as dealing with duplicate job adverts.
The Minister for Employment, Damian Hinds said:
“Universal Jobmatch is one of the largest jobsites in the country – helping thousands of people every week find the right job for them free of charge.
“We’ve listened carefully to user feedback, and these improvements mean everyone will be able to navigate the site more quickly and easily.
“With around 750,000 vacancies available across the UK at any one time, Universal Jobmatch remains a useful option for jobseekers and businesses alike.”
The Government is giving jobs-boards six weeks’ notice before the changes come into effect on 22 May.
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