U.S. Hiring Trends Report: 2016

Transcription

1 U.S. Hiring Trends Report: 2016 Occupation and Opportunity The Shifting Ground for Middle Class Jobs in a Changing America

2 In 2008, it was change has come to America and in 2016 it was renewing the American dream. Each of the last two U.S. presidential transitions acknowledged some aspect of the profound transitions that have been occurring in American society and the U.S. economy. While it s common for politicians to position themselves as change agents, this was not empty rhetoric. Eight years apart, these soundbites reflect that long-term trends are at play. In the 2016 campaign, the economy was in focus once again, but the discussions revolved around trade and manufacturing, rather than financial crisis. For many people, the manufacturing industry is crucial to the U.S. middle class, because of its reputation for providing stable, well-paying blue-collar jobs. Many contrast this with service-providing industries, where job growth has been faster, but higher levels of education are often in demand or jobs may be less stable. Yet there is much more to manufacturing employment than the stereotype of machinists and assembly line workers, and having a realistic view of that can inform one s vision for the role of manufacturing in both the U.S. economy as a whole and in individuals educational and career plans. Moreover, like other industries, manufacturing itself is constantly changing, and its employment base changes in response. To grasp the current state of play, it helps to look at data, and that is where icims comes in. All data needs to be interpreted in context, so this report, the last of its quarterly series, compares the composition of job hires in 2016 across a group of industries. We chose four to reflect different aspects of the changing U.S. economy: manufacturing, retail trade, healthcare & social assistance, and professional & business services. To better understand the hiring landscape, icims looked at not only who is hiring, but what they are hiring for which skills and occupations are most in demand by which kinds of employers. We also looked at how many people are applying for select categories of jobs and the prevalence of full-time versus other kinds of jobs. The result is a snapshot of the U.S. job market as it stands poised for the next chapter of its history. Josh Wright icims Chief Economist 2

3 Table of Contents Key Findings 4 Post-Industrial Transitions in U.S. Industries and Occupations 4 Jobs in Key Industries 7 Healthcare Jobs: Concentrated in Direct Services 7 Retail Trade Jobs: Focus on Sales 8 Professional & Business Service Jobs: Strength in Diversity 9 Manufacturing Jobs: Beyond the Factory Floor 10 Supply and Demand in Individual Occupations 11 3

4 Key Findings Occupation Types of Hires Across Industries Manufacturing and professional & business services hired a more broadly diversified set of occupations than either retail trade or healthcare & social assistance. Occupations focused on computers and math contributed about 9% of positions to not only professional & business services, but also manufacturing, compared to 1% or less for healthcare and retail. Full-Time Versus Other Arrangements The prevalence of part-time work was highest in the retail trade industry: 43%, compared to at most 18% among the others. The healthcare industry hired by far the largest proportion of contingent positions: 18%, compared to at most 4% among the others. Supply and Demand for Individual Occupations White-collar positions received substantially more applicants, on average, than the blue-collar and so-called pink-collar (service-oriented) positions. Some common medical positions may be harder to fill than programming positions. Managerial positions received some of the largest numbers of applicants per position. Post-Industrial Transitions in U.S. Industries and Occupations Ever since the Great Recession, economic policy and job growth have featured prominently in public debates, but the 2016 presidential election gave fresh urgency to the question of jobs for the American middle class. One of the challenges is that the source of jobs is changing. The base of U.S. employment has been shifting under the influence of a number of forces primarily technology, trade, and demographics. The manufacturing industry, which once provided rich opportunities for workers who lacked a college degree, has been contracting as a share of total payrolls. The industries with growing shares require a different set of skills and provide different kinds of career tracks, so understanding how this composition is shifting is crucial for understanding the changing face of opportunity in America. Put another way, the puzzle of job growth is not just a question of which industries will be growing by how much but also of which occupations. 4

5 icims looked at hiring activity in manufacturing and three other industries to see how exactly these broad trends are playing out in today s workplace not only who is hiring, but what they are hiring for. To get a closer look at the industries in the U.S. economy that have been expanding, we narrowed in on healthcare and professional & business services. Healthcare is expected to grow as the U.S. population continues to age and professional & business services is expected to grow as the U.S. economy continues to shift toward a greater reliance on providing services rather than producing goods. To compare another industry with lower education requirements for workers but less of a secular tailwind, we also looked at retail trade. Figures 1 and 2 compare these four industries share of total U.S. nonfarm payrolls going back to Figure 1: The Shrinking Footprints of Retail and Manufacturing Figure 2: The Growing Footprints of Healthcare and Professional/Business Services Proportion of Total Nonfarm Payrolls 16% 14% 12% 10% 8% 6% Recession Retail Manufacturing Source: BLS Proportion of Total Nonfarm Payrolls 14% 13% 12% 11% 10% 9% 8% 7% 6% Recession Healthcare Professional/Business Services Source: BLS The contrast is stark, the implications profound. Professional & business services will create jobs primarily in white-collar professions. Healthcare will create jobs for a variety of education levels, from the hyper-educated MD-PhDs and subspecialty surgeons to home health aides, dental assistants, and phlebotomists. The dimmer outlook for manufacturing and retail trade implies declining or at least changing prospects for less-educated workers. Even if they consider a transition to healthcare, for instance, the lower-skilled health-related occupations will be very different from factory jobs in a variety of ways. Crucially, they may not provide the opportunity to advance the way entry-level manufacturing jobs once did. Even manufacturing itself will require more than only assembly workers in factories: Automation and better technology in the manufacturing industry has led to the need for more specialized and technical job skills, often requiring higher education. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts that jobs in production occupations (which includes factory workers, machinists, and artisans) will decline by 3.1% between 2014 and 2024 (see figure 3). In the next section, we will look at icims data to reveal how much of manufacturing employment already stretches beyond factory workers. 5

6 In contrast, healthcare-related occupations are projected to grow between 10.5% and 23% over the same period. Of the other occupation categories for which the BLS provides projections, only two of those that are projected to post double-digit growth rates are not related to healthcare: construction and computers & math (which includes software engineers and statisticians). Figure 3: Projected Growth in Occupations Figure 4: Occupations That Are Most Likely to Decline Percent Healthcare Support 23.0% 16.4% 13.1% 10.1% 8.4% All: 6.5% 5.5% 5.0% 2.0% -3.1% Technical Healthcare Computer & Math Construction Business & Financial Management Sales & Related Administrative Support Production Source: BLS 3% 3% 10% 23% Production Maintenance & Repair Transportation 60% Management & Administration Protective Service Source: BLS The BLS has also published projections for the 30 occupations that it predicts will decline over the same period, and these figures provide a similarly grim outlook for working on a factory assembly line. Of those 30 fastest declining occupations, 60% were in the production category. A total of 23% were in management and office administration, as even some of these higher-skilled jobs get automated away as well. 6

7 Jobs in Key Industries Three years into the journey to 2024, where does the U.S. labor market stand? This section provides icims snapshot of hiring across occupations in four industries: manufacturing, retail trade, healthcare & social assistance, and professional & business services. For each industry, we review the breadth of occupation types hired 1 and point out a few noteworthy categories. We also show the composition of full-time versus part-time jobs. Healthcare Jobs: Concentrated in Direct Services In healthcare, about 80% of 2016 hires were concentrated primarily among direct providers of care, although this was spread across four major categories. These included technical healthcare positions like physicians and nurses, allied healthcare support such as medical and dental assistants or home health aides, and community and social service occupations such as counselors and social workers. The grab-bag of other occupations was a modest 14% and was highly fragmented at that only four of these occupation types contributed more than 1% of hires. The category including logistics and accounting business and financial operations contributed over 1.5%, and the category including software developers and statisticians (computers and math) contributed about 1.2%. The healthcare industry had a significant proportion of part-time positions (17%), but more distinctive was the fact that it had by far the largest proportion of contingent positions (18%), whose hours vary with demand for services. Figure 5: Healthcare Hires Focused on Direct Service Table 1: Top Other Occupations in Healthcare Other Percent 6% 14% Food Preparation & Serving 3% 43% Building & Grounds Maintenance 2% 17% 20% Business & Financial Operations 2% Personal Care & Service 2% Technical Healthcare Management & Administration Other Healthcare Support Community & Social Service Education, Training, & Library 1% Computers & Math 1% 1 For occupation types, this section focuses on broad groups of major categories of jobs under the U.S. government s Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) System, but in the next section we dig down to more granular, specific types of detailed occupations as well. 7

8 Figure 6: One-Third of Healthcare Hires Were Not Full-Time 3% 1% 17% 18% 62% Contingent Full-Time Intern Part-Time Unknown Retail Trade Jobs: Concentrated in Sales In retail trade, 62% of 2016 hires were concentrated in just one broad category of occupation types: sales. The proportion of hires in management or administration was 14% the lowest among these four industries but not by a lot. Miscellaneous other major categories constituted a fragmented 24%, with only of five of them comprising more than 1% of hires. Of these, business and financial operations contributed about 1.2%. Retail trade hired the largest share of part-time positions among the four industries reviewed in this report. Figure 7: Retail Trade Occupations Concentrated in Sales Table 2: Top Other Occupations in Retail Trade Other Percent 14% 24% 62% Installation, Maintenance, & Repair 5% Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports & Media 4% Transportation 4% Technical Healthcare 3% Sales & Related Occupations Management & Administration Other Production Workers 3% Food Preparation & Serving 1% Business & Financial Operations 1% 8

9 Figure 8: Retail Trade - Large Proportion of Part-Time Positions 10% 0% 43% 46% Contingent Full-Time Intern Part-Time Unknown 0% Professional & Business Services: Strength in Diversity Unsurprisingly, the professional & business services industry hired the broadest base of occupations, with nearly 48% from a miscellaneous group of other occupations. Of these, there were three major categories contributing 8% or 9% to the total, and they demonstrate how work in the U.S. is growing in fields that emphasize creativity or technical skills. Two of those three larger other categories emphasize advanced administrative and technical skills (software and statistics, accounting and logistics, etc.), and the third emphasizes creative and communications skills (media, arts, and design). Nine categories contributed more than 1%. The proportion of hires that were not full-time was only modestly lower than in healthcare, but more concentrated in part-time work (18%) than contingent work (3%). Figure 9: Diversified Hiring in Professional & Business Services Table 3: Top Other Occupations in Professional & Business Services Other Percent Art, Design, Entertainment, Media, et al. 9% 47.7% 42.3% Computers & Math 9% 10.1% Business & Financial Operations 8% Protective Services 4% Management & Administration Sales & Related Other Production Occupations 3% Architecture & Engineering 3% Food Preparation & Serving Related 3% 9

10 Figure 10: More Part-time Positions than Contingent in Professional & Business Services 9% 3% 18% 2% 69% Contingent Full-Time Intern Part-Time Unknown Manufacturing Jobs: Beyond the Factory Floor Manufacturing hired a breadth of occupation types more similar to professional & business services than either healthcare or retail trade. That includes a greater proportion of occupations in general management and administration and a much greater proportion of miscellaneous other occupations. Seven categories contributed more than 1%, and some of these provided nearly 10% of hires each. The production occupations most closely aligned with the manufacturing industry s core mission constituted only about one-fifth of hires, raising the question of what exactly is a typical manufacturing job? As noted above, the BLS forecasts that production workers (including factory workers) will actually contract through In this context, it is worth noting that the largest other category was for computers and math at 9% of hires, not as high a proportion as in professional & business services, but well above healthcare and retail trade reflecting how manufacturing is growing more automated and requiring workers with advanced, technical education. The manufacturing industry s proportions of full-time and other jobs was similar to professional & business services, but the production occupations were much more biased toward full-time work. Figure 11: Manufacturing Hired a Lot More Than Factory Workers Table 4: Top Other Occupations in Manufacturing Other Percent 43% 20% 22% 16% Computer & Mathematical Occupations 9% Installation, Maintenance, & Repair Occupations 8% Architecture & Engineering Occupations 7% Production Occupations Management & Administration Sales & Related Occupations Other Business & Financial Operations Occupations 6% Healthcare Support Occupations 5% 10

11 Figure 12: Manufacturing Hires Figure 13: Production Occupation Hires 13% 4% 0.9% 5.5% 5.5% 1.9% 9% 5% 69% 86.2% Contingent Full-Time Intern Part-Time Unknown Contingent Full-Time Intern Part-Time Unknown Supply and Demand for Individual Occupations Data on positions hired tells us primarily about employers demand for different kinds of occupations, but what about the supply? For the 100 most common occupations in the icims customer base, we looked at the number of applications per position what we call the talent supply/demand (TSD) ratio. Some of the patterns were surprising. Among icims customers, the white-collar positions received substantially more applicants, on average, than the blue-collar and so-called pink-collar (service-oriented) positions (see figures 14 and 15). It seems unlikely that there are more U.S. workers who have white-collar resumes than blue- or pink-collar. There may be more workers who aspire to white-collar positions, or it may be that icims customers approach white-collar jobs differently. Perhaps they post these jobs more widely (such as to job boards and not just proprietary career portals), expecting that more of the applicants to these positions would have their own computers and require more sophisticated marketing strategies to be reached. Then the larger average number of applicants may simply reflect the wider net, the more intensive marketing. More Applicants Per Position for White Collar Jobs Figure 14 Figure 15 Applicants / Posting Management Business & Financial Services Administrative Support Computer and Math 21 Community & Social Services 18 Sales & Related 13 Technical Healthcare Applicants / Posting Healthcare Support Transportation Protective Service Food Preparation & Serving Maintenance & Repair Production 11

12 There were surprises at the more granular level of detailed occupations, too 2. icims found that some healthcare-related occupations received even fewer applicants than did software engineering positions. That means hiring professionals in the medical field may be even more starved for talent than those looking for programmers. Extreme cases include nurses and physical therapists professions that are expected to post some of the fastest growth over the next decade. Note though that these figures do not control for the relative quality of the applicants. The wide disparity between the TSD ratios of these healthcare-related and software-related occupations may be due to the high standards of formal education and official licensing required by the healthcare industry. Given the widespread reports of shortages of software developers, it may be that there are more unqualified candidates applying to these positions, or that software developers are simply more willing to apply to a job than healthcare workers. It stands to reason that programmers would be more mobile by dint of the independent personality types associated with that line of work or the sometimes short-lived nature of the start-ups they often work for. Figure 16: Some Healthcare Candidates Look Even Scarcer Than Programmers Applicants / Posting Web Developers 29 Software Developers, Applications 11 Registered Nurses 5 Physical Therapists Applicants / Posting Figure 17: Production Occupations Bookkeepers 33 Accountants & Auditors 14 Loan Officers Figure 16 also shows how quickly the demand for certain skills may be shifting. Web development was a hot job in the early days of the Internet age, but now its TSD ratio is closer to that of bookkeepers (see figure 17) than that of software engineers. Also in figure 15, occupation-specific TSD ratios provide evidence for the conventional wisdom that creativity and critical-thinking skills are in greater demand than skills for more repetitive tasks. For instance, bookkeepers see much more applicants per position than accountants, auditors, and loan officers. The latter positions require exercising substantial judgment and critical thinking. 2 Under the SOC System, occupations are grouped in various levels of aggregation. Where the first section of this report uses the most aggregated major grouping, the second section uses both the major groups and the most granular level of detailed occupations. 12

13 icims found that managerial positions received some of the largest numbers of applicants per position. Figure 18 shows that human resource managers and marketing managers received the largest number of applicants. Healthcare manager positions received at least 65% fewer applicants. Again, the personality types, workplace cultures, and career trajectories of these different professions may all play a role. Figure 18: Supply Versus Demand Varies Widely for Managers Applicants / Posting Human Resources 57 Marketing Financial Sales General Operations Food Services Medical & Health Services Managers, All Other 13

14 About Us About icims System Data This report presents data from January 2014 through December 2016 in a panel of more than 1,500 employers drawn from icims customer base of more than 3,200 contracted customers. The data is generated by user interactions with icims software, which processes over 2 million jobs a year and over 32 million applications, with broad geographic and industry representation across the U.S. A team of icims engineers and data scientists extracted and cleaned the data, applying a variety of filters and then aggregating it to protect the privacy of icims clients and their job candidates. Employers are assigned to industries under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Positions were assigned occupation types under the U.S. government s Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) System. Under the SOC System, occupations are grouped in various levels of aggregation. Where the first section of this report uses the most aggregated major grouping, the second section uses both the major groups and the most granular level of detailed occupations. About icims Hiring Insights About icims Chief Economist: Josh Wright is Chief Economist at icims and oversees the organization s proprietary research. Prior to joining icims, Josh served as a U.S. economist with Bloomberg L.P., where he analyzed current macroeconomic trends and was a frequent guest contributor on Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg TV. As Chief Economist at icims, Josh is responsible for analyzing proprietary data in order to produce fresh insights on emerging trends in the U.S. labor market. He contributes to the publishing of quarterly trends reports, as well as semi-annual reports and blog posts on ad hoc labor topics. In addition, Josh supports in the development of software that allows clients to analyze their own performance relative to indus try benchmarks by collaborating with data scientists, software developers, and marketing executives. A former Federal Reserve staffer, Josh helped build the Fed s mortgage-backed securities (MBS) portfolio of more than $1 trillion, among other responses to the global financial crisis. As a researcher, he has published on labor and housing markets, as well as U.S. monetary policy, and advised policymakers across the legislative and executive branches of government. icims Hiring Insights is an online resource for labor market insights and hiring trends. Our team of researchers and writers uses icims exclusive data, as well as proprietary and secondary research, to create reports and articles that cover the most recent developments in the workforce. Featuring icims Chief Economist, Josh Wright, icims Hiring Insights helps its readers stay well-informed about the latest in recruiting, technology, and the labor market. To learn more visit: 14