Are job seekers leaving the travel industry?
The number of people looking for new jobs in travel plunged last year, despite a big rise in redundancies.
C&M Recruitment said its registrations were down 53% year-on-year since the start of the pandemic.
The data from its 2020 Travel Salary Index suggests people might have left the travel industry, if only temporarily.
Executive salaries saw the first fall since 2015 last year, when they dropped 2.6% to £57,065.
But travel salaries for new jobs overall rose a smidge to £28,287, despite the impact of the pandemic. It means that wages have risen for six years in a row following increases of 4.99% in 2019, 3.16% in 2018, 1.58% in 2017, 1.80% in 2016 and by 1.46% in 2015.
The number of new job vacancies in the travel industry fell 74% last year and by 93% between April and December 2020.
However, C&M Director Barbara Kolosinska said 2021 ‘has got off to an extremely encouraging start’.
January saw the highest number of new travel vacancies since the start of the pandemic last March, and this month is looking set to be even busier, she said.
"We’ve learned over the past year or so that we need to be very cautious when making any predictions or projections about the state of the travel industry in the coming months, but things certainly do appear to be moving in the right direction and becoming more positive by the month," added Barbara.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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