The last few years have been characterized by historically low unemployment rates combined with the ever-rising number of job openings. These factors have driven a major shift in the job market, from one that was employer-driven to one that is now more candidate-driven. As a result, we've seen the development of several positive changes in the hiring landscape, including the growing importance of employer branding and candidate experience. With so many job openings available and not enough people to fill them, companies have had to adopt new ways to compete for the limited talent available.
But the rise in job openings may have finally reached its inflection point.
In a recent survey, we asked hiring professionals how many people they expected to hire in 2019 compared to 2020. The survey included over 350 individuals across every industry and company size. To our surprise, we found that from 2019 to 2020, companies are actually expecting to hire about 10.7% fewer new employees.
Compare that to our Benchmark Report from last year, where we asked the exact same question. From that survey, we found that, from 2018 to 2019, companies still expected their hiring volume to increase by a modest 2.3%.
The 10.7% decrease is the first time we’re seeing a clear sign that hiring demand may have finally start to slow down. And 10.7% isn’t exactly a small number.
*Symbolic representation of 10 years of hiring demand
It remains to be seen if 2020 will actually be the inflection point that the survey suggests. The greater implications of the survey results remain to be seen. Talks of an upcoming recession have been swirling for years, and several economic indicators of recession have cropped up, but there’s no reason to sound the alarm bells yet! Another finding from our survey points to a sunnier outlook for 2020; while organizations did indicate that they were planning to hire less, they had no plans to reduce their HR spending for 2020, and HR teams are still very invested in improving the candidate experience to attract the best talent. This could just be a classic case of “what goes up must come down.”
Interested in seeing what else hiring professionals had to say in our latest Benchmark Report? Download a copy for yourself.
