Recession and the Job Market.

Looking back over 2009, the iGaming industry passed through a leaden job market.
As a general rule, we saw entry level and graduate jobs almost totally dry up, with the exception of bi-lingual payments or support and trading positions.
Much debate has been given to the merits of bringing people from outside the iGaming bubble into the industry; however the prosaic reality was that in most instances in the recessionary economic environment, operators were very much looking for professionals who could hit the ground running, not for people who needed time to progress into their new role.
Hyperion saw as a whole the typical vacancy we filled rise markedly in salary, however, although this denoted not a salary jump but that firms looked to make more senior hires rather than recruit for junior positions.
On a similar note, general retrenchment saw marketing positions being weighed towards retention rather than acquisition. as operators sought to consolidate their user bases.
Hyperion is approaching three years trading this March, and has managed to expand at a time when generic recruitment companies have tried and failed to penetrate iGaming, and rivals have ceased trading.
Operating internationally we have managed to insulate ourselves from the slow down some of the larger UK firms have been subject to - indeed, of the invoices processed from November to January, 62% of them were for companies based outside the UK. As well as the usual suspects in Europe, invoices have been generated for Manila, Hong Kong and other more far flung gaming hotspots.
Finally the UK is out of recession (albeit by just a 0.1% rise in the fourth quarter) and there very much appears to be an increased willingness by candidates to register interest in opportunities.
Last quarter high street retailers reported increases in spending partly due to consumer’s fatigue with being thrifty; likewise, candidates have grown tired of waiting in jobs that they can aspire beyond.
Hyperion exhibits at or attends all the major shows such as ICEi, EGR Live, G2E Asia and others, and January’s ICEi conference has been by far the busiest we have seen for candidate traffic.
As we accelerate away from the recession, the job market will increasingly be fuelled by candidates still employed by those firms, with salary and bonus freezes set to create a lively market.