Each year, the President’s State of the Union address lets us know how we’ve evolved as a nation in the past year. This workforce report serves a similar purpose, giving us a snapshot of the employment trends that have defined the country over the last 12 months.
No matter your place in the employment landscape—employee, job seeker, recruiter or policymaker—we hope that you’ll be able to use the following insights to better understand the current state of the workforce situation in the United States.
Key Insights:
Hiring Remains Strong After a Spike in January:
- In February, hiring across the U.S. was 20.1% higher than in February of last year. Seasonally-adjusted hiring was 8.5% lower in February, indicating that January’s spike in hiring was probably a one-off.
- The industries with the biggest year-over-year hiring increase in February were aerospace, automotive, and transportation (24.4% higher); architecture and engineering (19.4% higher); and financial services and insurance (18.8% higher).
Banks are Hiring:
- New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles—the country’s biggest cities and financial cities—unsurprisingly boast the most people hired for trading and investment, risk management, and financial planning positions.
- However, the cities with the fastest growing hiring markets for financial skills are Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Raleigh-Durham, San Antonio and Austin. The biggest relative spike in hiring for these skills was in Kansas City.
Growing Cities = Demand for Teachers:
- In quickly growing cities like Las Vegas, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh-Durham and San Antonio, demand for teachers is growing rapidly—and supply is, too. In Cincinnati, Hartford and Milwaukee, where migration in and out of the city are about equal, both supply and demand for teachers are notably weak. In Oklahoma City, where low pay for teachers has been a controversial issue in recent years, demand for teachers is starting to pick up.
- Current hot markets for teaching and education skills include Denver (#6), followed closely by Austin (#7), Raleigh-Durham (#8) and Minneapolis-St. Paul (#9).
- The U.S. cities with the overall highest demand for teaching and education skills are San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston, New York City and Seattle.
Migration as an Indicator of Economic Growth:
- Net inward migration is a strong indicator of economic growth and employment opportunities. The U.S. cities with the highest inward migration rates overall are Denver, Austin and Seattle.
- Austin, Orange County and San Diego are the cities with the most total migration (workers moving into and out of a city).