Jobs continue to return, based on the federal jobs report about January employment. Here are the numbers you need, hiring trends we expect to see this year and how to best connect with candidates.
Unemployment by major worker group:
- Overall unemployment: 6.3%
- Men: 6%
- Women: 6%
- White workers: 5.7%
- Asian workers: 6.6%
- Hispanic workers: 8.6%
- Black workers: 9.2%
Temporary layoffs: 2.7 million (0.3 million less than December 2020)
Permanent job losses: 3.5 million (0.1 million increase compared to December 2020)
Employees who worked from home (teleworking): 23.2% (0.5 points down from December 2020)
People unable to work due to pandemic: 14.8 million workers worked zero or reduced hours because their employer closed or lost business. This number is down by 1 million from December 2020.
Hiring insights and industries driving job growth
CareerBuilder data shows that half of U.S. states posted month-over-month gains in job postings in January, with truck drivers and registered nurses topping the list of available roles. Transportation and warehousing remain among the most in-demand industries, with more than 1 million jobs posted, and we expect additional growth in these sectors to support vaccine distribution and administration.
Other top 10 job titles include retail sales workers (and their supervisors), registered nurses, truck drivers, and software and app developers. In January, we saw personal care aides and critical care nurses leave the top 10 job titles, while marketing managers and general maintenance/repair workers were added.
Childcare-related roles experienced massive growth last month, with a 440% increase in childcare workers and a 306% increase in nannies. Related, there was a 208% increase in the need for special education teachers.
So, how do you plan to connect with these candidates?
Understanding the labor market is a great first step to finding the right people at the right time for your team. Next, you need to decide if you’re ready to hire now – or if you need to build a talent pipeline for when you are ready. Do you have an easily searchable repository of candidates? Do you know what skills they have or how engaged they want to be with your company? Figure out how your talent acquisition process makes it easy for you to find and connect with candidates, no matter where you are in your hiring strategy.
