I got my monthly edition of the IPA's Skypointer newsletter yesterday.
This month, to celebrate it's 10th birthday, they reprinted the employment news from Issue 1 in the inside cover. There looked to be considerably more vacancies than this months, printed towards the back.
Lots of nice phases, such as minimum frozen ATPL, type rating not nessessarily required and newly qualified CPL's taken.
To be far, issue 1 was from Sept, so it would include the autumn hiring season.
Only anecdotal, but indicative I believe none the less.