As the global hiring market freezes, demand for job search applications (apps) has surged. With new hiring slowing and artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly replacing jobs, job seekers are flocking to job apps to find immediate job postings and information.
According to global market research firm Sensor Tower on the 11th, global downloads of job search and hiring apps in the first half of this year neared 300 million, up 8% from a year earlier. Based on App Store and Google Play estimates that exclude preinstalls and duplicates, annual downloads are on track to top 620 million at this pace. The report said global downloads of job search and hiring apps grew an average of 11% annually from 2018 to 2024 and surpassed 560 million last year.
Sensor Tower said, "The market itself has entered a structural growth phase," and added, "An 8% increase in annual global downloads is an unusually large jump statistically."
Korea shows a similar pattern. Domestic downloads of job search and hiring apps steadily increased from under about 2 million in the first quarter of 2019, topped 4 million in the first quarter of last year, and neared 5 million in the first quarter of this year. That is a 2.5-fold increase over five years. In particular, from January to July this year, the most downloaded hiring apps in Korea were ▲ Employment 24 ▲ Albamon ▲ JOBKOREA, in that order. This is interpreted as indicating rising demand for trust in and access to public hiring information.
By monthly active users (MAU) last month, Albamon ranked highest with 3.32 million. For this app, MAU increased by about 90,000 compared with two years ago. Over the same period, JOBKOREA and Saramin saw MAU rise by 100,000 each to 1.63 million and 1.51 million, respectively, while LinkedIn increased by 30,000 to 220,000.
The growing popularity of job apps reflects a broader expansion of job searching as the global labor market becomes unstable. With the global economic slowdown dragging on and entry-level hiring falling, and with layoffs and industry restructuring driven by recent AI adoption proceeding quickly, demand for job apps is increasing. Despite a shrinking youth population, their stronger desire to find stable jobs has translated directly into more app use.
There is also analysis that the hiring market itself is shifting from websites to app-based searches that enable alerts, search, and instant applications. Recently, job apps have sharply improved usability by leveraging AI for recommendations, job matching, and automatic résumé generation. In particular, today's job seekers want faster, more immediate information, and this environment has shifted job-hunting habits toward mobile apps.
A source in the human resources (HR) industry said, "As the slowdown persists, job seekers are visiting apps frequently to find immediate job postings and information, which is boosting user numbers," while adding, "However, since corporations' hiring sentiment has not yet recovered, the HR industry aims to focus on new business along with hiring to improve results."