As happens over the years, the pendulum swings back and forth from a candidate-driven market to an employer-driven market. The pendulum is in the process of moving toward the employer side, but there have been multiple years of more demand than supply of candidates. While the slowing of the market is good news for employers, the difficulty uncovering top talent globally is still very real. This slowing should allow better focus and a bit more time to fill openings for recruiters. Instead of working multiple openings at the same time, recruiters may have time to focus on one solid job opening at a time.
Labor market tightness varies greatly by country and region. While the US, UK, Canada, India, Ireland and Singapore are showing signs of slack below pre-pandemic levels, several European nations are still in very tight labor markets including Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands. In many locations, candidates that were on the sidelines are now in search of stable work. LinkedIn is reporting a 35% increase in applications per job opening advertised on their sites. Forecasters are planning for a rolling recession beginning in late 2023 hitting sectors at different times with different intensities. It appears that the dramatic reductions in hiring have subsided in most sectors with what were 20% plus reductions actually increasing in May of 2023 by 3 to 5%. Some sectors remain weak, specifically technology, information and media seeing the greatest deceleration.
Employees remain drawn to remote work. In some ways this is a generationally-driven demand. Younger workers are more accepting of, or even expect, onsite work situations, while older workers want the freedom associated with remote work. Employers once very flexible are becoming less flexible on remote work and are more commonly expecting a mix or hybrid situation as the best case for employees versus a totally remote situation. Administrative, professional services and financial services are most likely to still offer remote work opportunities to candidates.
Some facts to consider from the LinkedIn Economic Graph, a good one to follow on LinkedIn of labor market trends of interest to you.
- 3.5% increase in hiring compared to April in the US
- 1 job opening for every 2 applicants in the US
- 8 out of 17 industries still have significant shortages of labor
- 1 in 9 jobs offers remote, down from 1 in 5
- 13% of jobs are hybrid, up from 6% in April of 2022
- 66% of applications are for remote and hybrid work
So the news for recruiters is that if you can get your clients to allow for remote and hybrid work, you will have a larger pool to draw from. There are still great demands out there and perhaps few new jobs entering the pipeline. Be selective, work the good jobs with good employers. Work the ones that are fillable and let the purple squirrels rest. Make sure employers are realistic, ready to take action and make offers to great fit candidates. Happy hunting!