While the job market remains strong as of February (for now), the world of work continues to implode. The Silicon Valley Bank collapse, the largest collapse in the U.S. of a financial institution since Washington Mutual went under in 2008, being the latest economic disruption affecting the tech sector, many startups, and lots of employees. Fortunately, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve stepped in to help protect all depositors and more. And with inflation still too high for the Fed, interest rate hikes will most likely continue too cool the market and potentially cause hiring to grind to a halt and increase layoffs.
Again, can’t we just get a break? Obviously not, but the latest CandE Pulse survey confirms that hiring is still holding on. Each month we’ll share some of our key pulse indicators with everyone, while all the monthly insights will be shared within our CandE Community.
In our second CandE Community Pulse update for February, we had over 100 responses from companies big and small across industries (66% were 500-100,000+ in employee size). When we asked employers what their current hiring status was, 83% said “we’re hiring” (see Figure 1), up slightly from last month’s CandE Pulse. 8% said they’re laying off, which is a big 100% increase from last month (4%). Not a trend we want to see.
We again asked employers whether they’ve increased or decreased the size of their recruiting team this month. 24% said they’ve increased their size, which is up 41% from last month (see Figure 2). This includes employers still hiring in healthcare, education, construction, manufacturing, and believe it or not, technology. Interestingly, hourly, professional, and management hires make up the majority of positions being hired for.
Lastly, we’ll again highlight how employers are currently rating their recruiting and candidate experience. When we compare the February CandE pulse to January, those companies that felt like they were competing in their recruiting and hiring practices and their candidate experience decreased by 7%, and those that felt like they were improving their recruiting and hiring practices and their candidate experience decreased by 5% (see Figure 3). The bad news is that those who felt they were lagging increased by 100%.
While the employers surveyed varied, this is still a good indication of how employers are resetting expectations and responding to the volatility of the hiring market and the economy while working to improve and struggling to.
Again, we’ll keep sharing some of these key pulse indicators with everyone each month, while all the monthly insights will be shared within our CandE Community. This is another benefit of participating in our benchmark research and you can learn more about all the benefits here.
So, for now it looks like recruiting and hiring are still hanging in there, although it’s slipping and lagging. Of course, we continue empathize with those who have been laid off and are willing to be an allied resource where we can be. We hope they find new opportunities soon and that they have a positive and fair candidate experience along the way, too. According to our February monthly CandE Pulse results, candidate experience is still the #1 recruiting and hiring initiative for those employers that responded (with screening and interviewing a close second), so let’s hope transparent communication and feedback loops are delivered to candidates each month.
Until the next monthly CandE Pulse survey update, be safe and well.