If you’re a recruiter and feel like you’ve been working around the clock since the new year started, here’s a glimpse into why…
Net employment outlook, calculated by subtracting the number of companies expecting to reduce their workforces from those expecting to hire, hit 35% for US employers this quarter, up from 29% in Q1 2023, according to a ManpowerGroup report. Companies in the US are expecting to hire more than all countries apart from India (37%), the Netherlands (37%), and Costa Rica (35%).
“US employers do expect to see a robust yet moderate hiring,” said Ger Doyle, SVP of Experis, a ManpowerGroup-owned IT staffing firm. “Last year, we had a slowdown in tech and a lot of layoffs,” he said. “This year, what we can expect will be tied to the interest rate decisions that will be made,” he added, noting how when the Fed cuts interest rates, companies often take it as a sign to launch new projects, ones that may require them to hire (though this may not happen until later in the year).
He shared with HR Brew the hiring trends companies may start seeing this quarter.
Hiring 411. Medium-sized businesses will be hiring the most in Q1, with 47% of employers with 250 to 999 employees expecting to grow their headcount, while companies with 1,000 to 4,999 employees are close behind (46%).
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But it won’t be easy. The majority (70%) of all US companies struggle to find qualified candidates, the report found. “The war for talent remains,” Doyle said. “[It] is very similar to what we saw in 2022, which was at about 75%, or a little bit lower…and that was an absolute [hiring] boom year.”
Doyle recommended that companies not abandon perks like flexible work options that have helped them attract talent in the tight job market of the past few years.
IT talent is in high demand. The roles most US companies are expecting to hire for in Q1 are in IT (55%), followed by financial services and real estate (43%). This is the fifth consecutive quarter that IT roles have been at the top of recruiters’ lists.
As the rate of tech advancement has increased, Doyle said, “There’s a huge demand for high-end developers, full-stack developers, and [talent] in the cloud and infrastructure space,” adding that companies also need more talent who can track, oversee, and synthesize the data their technology collects.
“There’s simply not enough people out there with those skills,” he said. “So, we’re looking at continuing to upskill and reskill people to get ready for the next avalanche of talent requests around AI and automation.”