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Mass layoffs may have dashed HR pros’ hopes of hiring picking up this year.
Roughly 25% of the global workforce is anticipating being laid off in the next six months, according to a recent ManpowerGroup report. While the US job market has been steady, many workers are concerned about how the economy and hiring might be impacted by the incoming Trump administration.
“While we all talk about the fundamentals of the job market being fairly steady, there’s not a lot of hiring happening…Hiring is definitely paused,” Rajesh Namboothiry, SVP at Manpower US, told HR Brew. He said he’s heard from candidates and recruiters alike that the hiring is “not at the pace they’d like to see.”
What’s in store. Namboothiry said he expects hiring to continue at its current pace for the rest of 2024 and into the first few months of 2025.
“Not massive hiring. Steady, cautious hiring, niche-skills hiring, continued improvement in jobs report, but very steady improvement,” he said. “And then, I think, Q2 is when I expect some shift to happen.”
Some companies, Namboothiry said, may have held off on 2025 budget and hiring planning until after the US presidential election. Now that it’s over, he said companies have more clarity on what the future may hold and how they can budget and hire accordingly.
“My expectation is that by Q2 we will start to see a slight pick up, and, by Q3, we will be in a pretty robust jobs market,” he said. “We’ll start to see some normalization of demand and employers much more willing to go back to their transformation [and] innovation projects and start hiring again.”
The bottom line. Recruiters, it might be wise to prepare for a potential hiring spree in the new year.