Across Europe, online hiring declined for the fourth month in a row with vacancies falling by -4% in November, the latest employment index by Monster has found today.  Belgium and the United Kingdom are the only two countries to report an increase in job opportunities, seeing modest growth rates of +1%.

Even in the more robust German market, the number of vacancies posted online dropped by -5%, following a positive growth rate of +2% in October. The country has seen job vacancies decelerate in recent months, according to Monster’s findings.

But a number of sectors still recorded positive growth. Jobs in environment, architecture, and urbanism were up for the seventh consecutive month and represented the top performing industry. This contrasts the falling demand for in the transport, post, logistics sectors which saw the sharpest reductions in the month.

In November, managers were still sought after (+5%) and saw the greatest increase in demand when compared to other professions. Elementary occupations continued to fall (-16%) and showed the weakest rates of annual growth.

“As the wider European economy continues to struggle, hiring remains cautious and even Germany is feeling the effect, charting an annual decline for the first time in 31 months,” said Alan Townsend, of Monster Europe.

“However, we continue to see pockets of resilience in recruitment across industries including healthcare and engineering and it's also encouraging to see the UK enter into its fourth month of positive growth.”