Online recruitment demand was up a single percentage point in October, with more than half of industries and sectors reporting some growth, according to job board Monster’s Employment Index UK.

The South-West remains the region with the fastest growth in online recruitment activity, up 18% year-on-year, with London second and the Midlands third, with growth of over 15%. Wales showed a decline in online recruitment of 9%, Scotland by 7% and Northern Ireland by 5%.

Transport, post and logistics takes the top spot among industry sectors with 27% growth compared to October 2010, overtaking engineering in second (25% growth), with production, manufacturing, maintenance and repair, construction and extraction and research and development all in strong growth.

Education, training and library was the sector showing the most recession in online recruitment with a 14% decline, closely following by public sector, defence and community, legal and healthcare and social work, with banking, finance and insurance also experiencing declines exceeding 10%.

While craft and trades workers and plant and machine operators and assemblers saw demand for their skills via online recruitment increase by 31% and 29% respectively, demand for clerical support workers dropped by 11%, the only occupation to report decline great than 4%.