April 2009 has not been a good month in the legal job market. Unsurprisingly really, and when I look back at previous years the month includes our lowest ever fee income levels (2003 – Iraq War + Easter), our lowest number of placements (April 2005) and our quietest month in job vacancies. In fact, it has been so quiet at times we have actually closed the Ten-Percent offices in the first week of April and sent everyone on annual leave for a week.
We have had 14 interviews, 5 job offers and 50 new vacancies since our last newsletter in March. Some of these interviews have been for consultancy posts, but the overwhelming majority have been for employed positions with salaried roles. Although a number of larger firms poked their heads above the parapet this month, most of them popped back down again quickly, and the majority of these positions have been with smaller practices.
Whilst numbers of candidates are up and the number of job vacancies down, there does seem to be a different atmosphere taking off which will hopefully lead to a resurgence in the legal market over the next few months, albeit not to any great extremes.