Happy Wednesday to everyone tuning in to today’s episode of The Hirewell Update. I’m your host, Ryan Brown, vice president of our corporate functions team, and this is my co host. I’m Emily Goor, director of our go to market recruiting team. Before we kick off the show, you can find all of our content at talentinsights.hirewell.com or if you’d like to learn more about Hirewell, our service offerings, check out our website, www.hirewell.com. Hi there, um. How’s it going? Everything is going great over here in Chicago. What’s happening on the west coast? Everything is good. I know we’re gonna, um, we’re gonna put this episode out next week, I believe, but gearing up for, for some Halloween this week, which is fun.
All the fun things. I know. That’s a great question. We have not, I say we like it’s my decision, but we have not decided what the babies are going to be yet. It’s, um, going to be, I think a game time decision, but we’ll see. How about your cutie little nieces? Um, the older niece, um, who’s about three and a half for those watching, she is insistent on being the Little Mermaid, Princess Ariel, and she’s making her baby sister be Flounder.
Doesn’t feel like super equitable. I know. She’s like, I’m going to be a princess and you’re going to be a fish. Yeah. I mean, not necessarily, but I mean, it sounds very much like a sister driven decision to me. Yeah. As a younger sister, I, I can understand. I feel we, we turn out. Okay. I think, yeah, everybody’s fine.
I love it. I love it too. Well, I’m excited to get into our topic today. We can, we can share a Halloween pictures later, but for now, yes, for now, this week’s episode of talent insights, um, I shared with you a few different things in terms of just some articles and a TikTok and all of these various pieces of content that have come out over the last couple of weeks and Forbes recently published an article that basically was summarizing just like the state of the white collar job market.
And, you know, shared a number of different insights in that article that we want to review today, but. Basically, like a quick summary of it is that we’re continuing to see a surge of jobs in industries like construction, government, healthcare, the service industry, and even some specialty tech roles, like those that are related to AI, but overall, the white collar job market isn’t quite seeing the same surge.
Yeah, and well, I appreciate you sharing those things with me earlier. I know we’ll, um. We’ll share like in the comments, if you look at what we’ll share, you know, some of the articles and I love when you get your, your info from TikTok, um, keeps me, keeps me with it as somebody without TikTok. Um, so we’ll share those, but I’m curious to know from you right now, like what are just some of the factors that are currently impacting the white collar job market?
Sure. So what was really interesting to me is one of the factors that was referenced in this article is actually when we’ve talked about a number of times this year, especially on this show, Em. And that’s just the fact that hiring has become more and more complex throughout the year. We’re seeing multiple rounds of interviews.
We’re seeing assessments making a comeback and with the decline in remote work, the need for interviews to be conducted on site has definitely made things more complicated as well. This really interesting data point that was shared in the article is that on average, it’s now taking the average white collar job seeker in the US a little over 22 weeks to land a new role.
So landing somewhere between four to five months as a job seeker. And you know, that amount of time is just, it’s astronomical. One more time. It’s taking the average white collar job seeker a little over 22 weeks to land a role in the U. S. That is, like, I’m, like, on one side, I’m like, those numbers are astonishing to hear.
at the other times, I’m not super surprised because I talk to job seekers every day and when I’m like, how’s the search going, recently I feel like a lot of people’s answers is, It’s rough. It’s taking a long time. And we’re seeing that internally too, Em, you know, partnering with our clients, you know, our time to fill is certainly taking a little bit longer than it normally does on average.
Yeah. So, I mean, it’s, it’s crazy that when you actually put the number on it and we love data, so appreciate you sharing that quantitative data. Are there any like sectors in particular that are experiencing kind of the most challenges? Absolutely. And I don’t think any of these are going to be totally shocking to folks, but sectors like communications, media and tech, for sure, have all taken a pretty big hit.
Um, and, you know, these are the sectors that we’ve seen the most amount of layoffs happening in and what that is, is essentially doing, which is also impacting kind of the white jowl. White collar job market. And some of the challenges that are happening is we’re taking a market that’s already saturated with really experienced, great professionals.
Those layoffs are adding additional professionals to now the job seeking market, and it’s just becoming more and more competitive. Yeah, already competitive and now even more competitive. And I know speaking of tech, we know that big tech typically influences decisions across the labor market. Um, we,. We talk a lot about, you know, in the past, but the FANG companies, how has like Amazon in particular, how has Amazon’s return to work, like the return to work mandate impacted things?
I’m not quite sure that there’s like tangible data on this yet. This article that we’re referencing from Forbes doesn’t mention anything in particular in terms of data points, but listen, like this is also a topic we’ve been talking about since the beginning of the year. And if we look back probably last year, that.
We started to see this decrease in fully remote work and there’s been a push for hybrid and now we’re in this season of a push to be back fully on site. And, um, you know, that, that push could very well be influenced by Amazon’s mandate. I think, you know, typically we’ve just seen those larger organizations really setting, you know, the tone for what other companies
tend to do, but there could be a number of different factors that are starting to influence that too. I mean, on the corporate function side of things, we are definitely seeing, you know, a push for four, five days a week on site with some of that flexibility that, you know, was offered pre 2020, which is if you have a doctor’s appointment, you can work from home, or maybe there’s some maintenance happening at your house and you have to be there.
One of the kids are sick. Things like that, but that like schedule of you get to come on site three days a week, and then work from home two days a week, we’re starting to see less and less of that. And it’s making a, you know, a pretty significant impact from a candidate perspective. Lots of folks are still wanting that type of flexibility, not necessarily flexibility.
Fully remote. There’s, you know, individuals that are always going to seek that. But I do think that there’s this market of where the bulk of talent probably sits, where the hybrid flexibility is what works best for them, for their family, for their work life balance. I don’t know what you’re seeing on the go to market team, but we’re certainly seeing a significant increase in return to work full time.
I agree. , uh, it’s for us, I would say it’s very city For us I would say its very city dependent. Um, like I know, for example, a lot of the roles, we actually have a good amount of roles right now in based out of New York, New York, particularly as a city that feels like they’re back on site, San Francisco is feeling more on site than it was like roles based out of other places.
There feels like there’s a little bit more flexibility. But, you know, now that you’re mentioning it, now that I think about it, I’m like, there are certain like geographic locations that if a company is based out of there is building an office there, they are like, we are in office, right? 4 days or 5 days a week.
Yeah. So, yeah, seeing similar things. I mean, and I think like, it’s hard like you and I. Hello, Winnie Lou. You and I have been, um, she’s calling me. It’s going to be fine. Um, we’ve, we’ve been like, I don’t want to say down on, but like, we’ve been talking about these mandates and it’s like, it’s, it’s tough to hear the word mandate because people don’t want to be forced to do things.
They want to be given the option. It makes it sound negative, but it’s not, it’s not all negative, right? Like we just came off of a really strong September here at Hirewell, at least, which means there’s some good news in the market. Right. Totally. Yes. There’s always a positive piece, even when, when times are challenging for sure.
And September, like you mentioned was phenomenal. It was definitely a great month for us here at Hirewell. And I think our hiring figures not only surpassed. Our internal forecast. But when we look at the labor market as a whole, um, it surpassed economists for forecast as well. And I think, you know, there’s a number of different factors that are at large this year.
It’s not only the things that we mentioned previously, but we’re also dealing with things like inflation and the election and election years typically have, you know, a pretty significant impact on the labor market and the closer we get to election time. Many organizations tend to slow down on hiring just a little bit to see what happens.
So none of this stuff is outside of the norm when it comes to what we’re experiencing from that, that standpoint. But the positive news is we are starting to see the tides turn a bit for job seekers. I mean, like we mentioned, September was phenomenal. Um, you know, . When I’m thinking about folks that are still on the market, especially those individuals that have been seeking a new opportunity for some time, you know, in terms of what to maybe do a little bit differently to create some new results.
I would definitely consider opportunities in growing fields, like we mentioned previously, construction, government, healthcare, or if the role you’re in has an opportunity to maybe find a specialization in AI and that’s, you know, a new alternative that you can maybe start to lean into. I would definitely do that, but, you know, I, I.
Offer a ton of empathy to folks, especially this year that have been job seeking. It’s been a challenge, but you know, putting your best foot forward, keeping an eye on some of the industries that are, are hiring and making sure that, you know, you’re presenting yourself the best way you can on LinkedIn through optimization that you’re customizing your resume, all of those things will definitely be beneficial.
Yeah. And use your network. Use your network. Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s a whole other, we can go into a whole other talent insights on that, but, um, yeah, but I, I appreciate you sharing. And again, we’ll, we’ll drop some of those links in the comments below. Okay. Um, but yeah, it’s, and it’s interesting to you
you’re talking about how the election is impacting all this. It’s I, we almost should post this earlier, um, just so that this, maybe if we do end up posting this before the election next Tuesday, I guess this coming Tuesday, just vote just vote, just get out there and exercise. You’re right. Y’all 100%. That’s it. That’s all we have today.
Well, I’m excited. We had a chance to talk about that, though, because I do think, you know, we’ve we’ve gone through quite a bit this year in terms of the labor market in terms of what people have experienced the last, you know, 4 almost 5 years at this point have been just absolute um. I don’t know, insanity in some ways, things we can’t predict.
It’s been a really turbulent market, um, year after year, post 2020. And, um, I’m hoping that post election now and post holidays we’ll get into some, I don’t know what normalcy looks like in the labor market, but you know, some normalcy. A little bit of a plateau would be nice if we could just like, just chill out a little.
I mean, the amount that we use the word rollercoaster on this show. It’s a lot. It’s a lot. Um, but yeah, no, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll tune back in. And like you said, a little, a little bit of normalcy would be, would be nice. Maybe it’s, maybe it’s right around the corner. Maybe it’s right around. Yeah. Maybe a little early December holiday fun will come with, you know, some good news from the labor market.
I sure hope so. I sure hope so. Well, that’s all I’ve got today. Anything else? That’s all I’ve got Em, take us home, Lou and I are gonna take us home. I’m gonna throw her toy and then I’m gonna take us home. , we only do one take on this show. So apologies. That’s all we have. You, you get it all. You get it all.
Um, that is a wrap though for this week’s episode of The Hirewell Update. Thank you all so much for joining us and Winnie Lou, she really appreciated you coming in our home. As a reminder, you can find all of our content at talentinsights.hirewell.com. Or if you’d like to learn more about Hirewell and all of our service offerings, check out our website.
It’s www.hirewell.com. And we’ll be back a couple of weeks from now on Wednesday around noon central. We’ll see you all then. See you then.
