The report also found that there were 113.9% more applicants battling it out for every job than there was a year ago.

CV-Library has analysed its data from June 2020 and compared the findings with May 2020 and June 2019 to see how the job market is fairing right now. The report has found that Dundee saw the biggest increase in job applications per vacancy last month with a rise of 73.9%. Job applications in Edinburgh rose by 19.7%, Stirling saw a rise of 18.5% and Aberdeen experienced a rise of 13.5%.

Inverness and Glasgow saw the lowest rise with job applications increasing by 10.1% and 6.3% respectively.

CV-Library’s data also reveals that while job numbers are slowly picking back up month-on-month, increasing by 15% across Scotland in June, they are still 62.9% lower than they were a year ago. Alongside this, when looking at average salaries, it appears that pay dropped by 2.8% across Scotland in June (month-on-month).

The cities that have seen the biggest drop in jobs compared to last year include Aberdeen (down 75.6%), Inverness (down 68.9%), Glasgow (down 67.8%), Edinburgh (down 61.5%), Dundee (down 59.2%) and Stirling (down 53%).

Lee Biggins, founder and CEO of CV-Library, said: “The rise in applications will be welcome news to organisations that have struggled to source top talent in recent years. However, the sad reality is that hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to look for a new role because of the pandemic. Competition for these jobs is intensifying and businesses need to be sensitive of the situation and remember that employer branding is still important. Try to give constructive feedback, communicate your hiring timeline and be as honest and open as possible with candidates.

 “As lockdown restrictions started to ease in June, we saw a number of different industries return to the workplace and this helped to instil confidence back into businesses. However, we still have a long way to go until job numbers return to normal levels. The fact that average salaries have dropped isn’t overly surprising, particularly as many organisations have struggled with their breakeven point during the pandemic.

“While most professionals still say that salary is the most important factor to them when looking for a new role, we’re also seeing that more workers want flexibility and job security too. As we can see from our data, lower wages certainly aren’t putting people off applying, but businesses will need to accommodate to their changing needs.”

• Read all of our articles relating to COVID-19 here.