Hiring for permanent roles in media and advertising has increased as the industry emerges from the summer holidays and the pandemic.
Alex Kenning, managing director of recruiter Aquent Australia, says the job market didn't really kick off until the third week week of January.
"But since then, the demand for talent across the whole of the digital marketing, creative and development space is increasing week on week," he told AdNews.
Demand for contract and freelance roles remains high in both long and short term contracts as it was in 2020.
"But the start of 2021 has seen a big lift in companies hiring for permanent roles," he says.
"This is a real shift from last year. For example, we had significantly more permanent roles registered with us in the first five weeks of 2021, than we had in either of the December or September quarters in 2020."
Demand is coming from large ASX-listed retailers looking to improve their customer experience with senior hires across ecommerce, web development and UX.
Small independent agencies are also building out and adding skills to their account management and design/development teams.
However, Acquent isn't seeing the same volume of adhoc, short term (one to two day) freelance requirements from agencies of 12-18 months ago.
"These requirements have historically come due to peaks in workload, so it implies there is still some capacity in the permanent staff they currently have," says Kenning.
"As over the coming weeks and months agencies get briefed on more work from their clients, I expect this to change and demand to get back to the 2019 levels."
Salaries remained relatively flat through 2020 and overall that is expected to repeat through 2021, says Kenning.
"That said, if the demand for the best talent continues to grow at the current rate, and the war for the best talent increases then this will only drive up the salaries needed to pay to secure the best talent," he says.
"But salaries aren't everything, it is just part of the overall package that talent want and just because a company pays the most, it doesn't mean it can attract the best."
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