Hiring rates across industries suggest country’s emergence from “rolling” recession

Magnit™, an Integrated Workforce Management (IWM) platform provider, today released the results of its Winter 2023-24 U.S. Labor Market Report. With the workforce evolving amid shifting labor dynamics, challenges such as labor shortages, wage disparities, and layoffs are likely to persist. However, multiple data points suggest an overall upswing, according to the report. Additionally, the report highlights data-driven strategies organizations might implement to overcome these difficulties and thrive in the new year.

“Through a careful examination of labor market data, we’ve uncovered a more optimistic perception of the U.S. economy’s trajectory,” said Dustin Burgess, Senior Vice President of Strategic Advisory at Magnit. “Our hiring, voluntary termination, and rate-of-change data analyses indicate positive shifts ahead, as does the influx of innovation from artificial intelligence. It’s going to be a time of great opportunity for employers who prepare strategies that take advantage of the evolving labor market.”

Key takeaways from the report include:

• The U.S. economy appears poised for an upswing: The past year’s hiring patterns — including an uptick in Q3 hiring to levels not seen since a year ago — suggest a “rolling” rather than “deep” recession. While certain industries or categories might still face hiring decreases or layoffs in the coming months, others will likely see staffing increases. For example, layoffs for warehouse worker and material handler roles accounted for 19% of all layoffs between Q3 2022 and Q3 2023, the largest share of any roles. In contrast, hiring for marketing and business development roles reached a two-year high in Q3 2023 after consistent gains throughout the same year-long period.
• Voluntary terminations are rising, and companies should prepare: Voluntary termination rates reached a three-year low in March 2023 but have risen over the past six months. This trend is likely to continue should hiring volumes stabilize or increase in 2024, as Magnit’s research shows that hiring volume and voluntary terminations tend to have a positive correlation.
• Organizations may want to rethink their approach to layoffs: Magnit data shows that some industries have laid off workers only to rebuild a significant portion of that workforce within the same year. For instance, despite significant amounts of layoffs for warehouse worker and material handler roles, hiring for these roles was up 51% in Q3 2023 compared to Q2. This net increase in hiring amounted to 81% of all layoffs for these roles across the prior 12 months combined.
• Demand for AI skills is exploding: In 2023, AI skills broke free from IT/technology silos, spreading to fields like accounting/finance, engineering, and operations, according to Magnit data. The uptick in demand for AI skills is particularly high in software engineering roles, with references to AI in job descriptions growing from 0.5% in 2019 to 3.3% this year. Magnit estimates this figure could nearly double by the end of 2024.

Magnit’s Winter 2023-24 U.S. Labor Market uses billions of data points from hundreds of thousands of workers across 51,000 roles to uncover trends affecting recruitment, retention, and staffing efforts. The company uses proprietary algorithms that aggregate, cleanse, anonymize, and analyze data from a variety of internal and external sources, including hundreds of client programs. To learn more about the latest U.S. labor market trends, download the full report.

About Magnit

Magnit™ is a global leader and pioneer in contingent workforce management. Our industry-leading Integrated Workforce Management (IWM) Platform is supported by 30+ years of innovation, modern software, proven expertise, and world-class data and intelligence. It enables companies to optimize talent and diversity goals while achieving operational and financial success. With Magnit, companies can adapt quickly to the evolution of work to grow their extended workforce with greater agility, transparency, and speed. magnitglobal.com

“Magnit” is a trademark or registered trademark of Magnit, LLC. Any trade, product, or service name referenced in this document using the name “Magnit” is a trademark and/or property of Magnit, LLC.

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