While the job market cooldown may be a welcome reprieve from unsustainable heat, it isn’t necessarily smooth sailing. There are still structural shifts at play that will impact hiring, and HR teams need to understand these trends so they can proactively adapt their talent strategies.
For example, the share of jobs that require specific years of experience has been falling over time and is now lower than it was in late 2022. If the labor market continues to cool and employers start to hire at a more normal pace, it’s possible that this trend will pick up again and the number of jobs with a high level of experience requirements will decline.
In addition, some job categories have remained steady during the cooling. However, the majority of those are healthcare-related positions (such as Physicians & Surgeons and Therapy) or government jobs. However, hiring in these sectors has slowed from their pre-pandemic highs and could continue to fall next year as the administration executes its plans for scaling back government hiring.
Moreover, despite an overall cooling, the number of jobs added monthly has been above the rate needed to keep up with population growth and close the current unemployment gap. This means that it’s important for the economy to diversify its sources of employment and ensure that the growth is broad-based. To do that, we’ll need to see more growth in frontline jobs such as Farmworkers and Delivery Drivers. We’ll also need to see more growth in care-related roles such as Nursing Professionals and Social Work and Counseling Workers and Education roles like Tertiary and Secondary Education Teachers.