While the economic downturn continued to affect the Dutch market during the first half of 2010, we saw evidence of recovery in the second half of the year. As organisations implemented new hiring strategies as part of long-term growth plans, capital raising among investment companies further stabilised the market.
Demand for accounting professionals in control and analyst positions increased, especially at the middle management level. Within the ICT sector, we witnessed more senior vacancies at the end of the year as firms focused recruitment at the junior to mid-level in the first half of 2010. We saw demand for treasury professionals from the beginning of the year with companies tending to focus long-term, hiring individuals with the potential to grow and move into management roles.
Although the legal sector was slow to recover, we saw increased demand for in-house and private practice lawyers in the second half of 2010. Encouragingly, we also saw an uptick in demand for interim professionals during the same period.
We expect the economic climate to continue improving during 2011 and recruitment levels to subsequently increase, with demand for qualified candidates with a proven track record particularly high.