Dive Brief:
- Job seekers entered 2025 with optimism, despite facing little movement in the number of jobs available and a quit rate that’s fallen below pre-pandemic levels for more than a year, Indeed’s research arm, Hiring Lab, reported Feb. 20.
- In what’s now become an established pattern, job searches sagged during the winter holidays, falling by 32% the last two weeks of December, Hiring Lab found. But in January, on par with the past few years, job search volume rebounded to 22% above Dec. 10 levels, Indeed said.
- Job postings in high-remote sectors are still down year over year — hovering at -.07%, the report found. However, in a good sign for knowledge workers, openings for remote jobs are inching back toward pre-pandemic levels, after lagging behind in 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, Indeed economist Allison Shrivastava noted in a post.
Dive Insight:
“No matter what state the economy is in, finding a new job remains a perennially popular New Year’s resolution,” with the exception of the peak COVID year between 2020 and 2021, Shrivastava said.
Hiring Lab’s findings suggest that job seekers’ interest in finding new employment remains steady but will likely face more competition for a pool of available jobs that’s stayed stagnant over the past few months, she added.
“Given low unemployment and anemic quits, it’s likely the majority of searches are coming from people already employed,” Shrivastava noted.
What job seekers are looking for has been well-documented: Roles that promise growth opportunities, improved work-life balance and better compensation, according to a January report from Express Employment Professionals.
Compensation may be a priority. That is, as long as joblessness remains low —and January data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed unemployment dropped to 4% — and the economy continues to run at a stronger-than-expected pace, pay pressure is still on for employers, ZipRecruiter’s chief economist has cautioned.
For hiring managers, the data probably means good news because they have more candidates to choose from, Shrivastava recently observed.
But hiring managers also need to consider the labor force’s accelerating aging, ZipRecruiter’s economist pointed out. Many companies are saying they need a way to get the most out of older workers and keep them on, such as by considering remote work, part-time arrangements or grandparent leave, she added.
It’s uncertain what will happen with immigration, but the number of immigrants coming to the U.S. is likely to fall, the ZipRecruiter economist has said.
While immigrant workers increase labor supply and could reduce the cost of labor, they allow for job growth and expansion, the economist explained. Deportations and reduced immigration can lead to contraction of particular industries and job loss for all workers, she noted.