Market Update, October 2022
Best time to hire in Ukraine
Welcome to the October edition of Djinni’s report on the tech job market in Ukraine. All the numbers are our own, based on user activity on Djinni.
Key points:
Active candidates: +144% , jobs online: -48%, compared to October 2021
Salaries are roughly the same as a year before
The monthly number of hires is back to the pre-war level
Candidates’ response rates are better than ever
The market for junior candidates and people without experience is brutal
There are five times more candidates than jobs
The number of candidates weekly active has reached an insane 64,000 by the end of September and keeps growing.
Candidates’ profiles online grew by 10K since our last update in July. Compared to the previous quarter, the growth is slowing down.
Meanwhile, the number of jobs online still did not recover from the drop in March, after Russia started the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The peak was 16K in April.
The huge increase in active candidates is largely due to junior candidates. The number of candidates online with little to no experience grew 3.5 times in a year (from 4K to 15K) while for seasoned candidates with 5+ years of experience it’s ‘only’ 2x growth (from 11K to 23K).
For some categories, it causes an insane amount of candidates per job. At some point, there were 400 junior QA candidates per open position. Brutal.
Job openings for senior positions grew 20% YoY
Amidst the general decline, openings for senior positions grew 20% compared to the previous year. We saw a similar trend during the COVID-19 pandemic: fewer open jobs with higher requirements.
Salaries stay at the pre-war level
The median hire salary stays the same compared to the last year. It increased in March and then went back to the ‘base’ level staying insensitive to the supply and demand craze.
In a recent poll in our Telegram channel, 38% of responders said they had a raise in salary in 2022. For roughly the same percentage the salary did not change.
Hiring is (almost) back to the pre-war level
The hiring process seems to recover to almost the pre-war level. In September we saw a record number of hires per month in 2022.
For the same number of hires today we have roughly three times more candidates looking for a job and twice fewer jobs. For a company, it means a 3x wider choice and an easier hiring process.
Sidenote: in September we saw an increased number of job openings for recruiters (+20% to the previous month). This suggests more hires in the coming months.
Job applications reach new all-time high
Since there are fewer jobs and more candidates, the number of job applications skyrocketed back in March and by September hit the new record of 65K applications weekly.
The number of contact requests by recruiters fell dramatically after Feb 24, somewhat recovered by May, and dropped again during summer.
The situation is very different for different experience levels.
The largest contributor to applications’ growth is junior-level candidates, while those with 2+ years of experience still receive more requests than apply themselves.
A candidate with less than a year of experience sends 28 applications a week, and a senior — less than one (!).
Response rate up 50% since January
Djinni’s key feature is the anonymity of candidates, who open their contacts only to interesting proposals.
The response rate improved from 22% at the beginning of the year to 33% by October.
There are two types of candidates at Djinni.
Active candidates are required to at least open the message. Passive candidates are not looking for a job right now but will accept a lucrative offer.
Сandidates in active search open their contacts to 50% of recruiters’ requests! You will hardly see this response rate elsewhere.
Only 10% of jobs offer relocation, and 90% are remote
There are much fewer opportunities for relocation today. Only 10% of jobs posted by international companies in September offer relocation compared to 38% in March.
Only 1.5% of job listings from international companies demand office presence, and almost 87% offer full remote. The share of the ‘candidates can choose’ option dropped from 27% in March to 6.5% in September.
Djinni is the best way to find jobs – survey
73% of developers believe that Djinni is the most effective way to land a new job, according to a recent survey on DOU.ua. About a quarter of IT professionals surveyed found their current position on Djinni.
Conclusions
There are more candidates and fewer open jobs than ever, which makes candidates more responsive to new offers. It’s a great time to hire developers in Ukraine cheaper and faster than ever. Don’t let this opportunity pass up.
Prices seem to be rising, as is inflation. Companies are earning more, while Ukrainians' salaries remain at the same level. None of the foreign companies want to hire Ukrainians with a small wage premium, even though the war is not over and candidates are desperately looking for work.
Great!