Breathing easy: Worries about layoffs are rarest for these 5 types of jobs

These days, 31% of U.S. professionals are concerned that their employers might be planning budget cuts and or layoffs, according to the latest edition of LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence survey.

Is that anxiety overblown? Realistic? Understated? With the economy continuing to send mixed signals, it’s hard to know what lies ahead. But Workforce Confidence data does shine a bright light on a related question: how much everyone’s stress levels vary right now, depending on their job roles.?

As the chart below shows, anxiety is mildest in domains such as legal, administration or accounting. Data is drawn from surveys of 21,207 LinkedIn members from Sept. 10 through Dec. 2.?

Lawyers, paralegals and others working in legal roles are the most serene, with only 22% of them concerned about budget cuts or layoffs.

This may reflect law’s unique standing as a counter-cyclical industry. When hard times hit, property foreclosure rates go up, which means more work for lawyers. Divorce rates generally decline , perhaps because unhappy couples can’t afford to break up. But bankruptcy filings and corporate restructurings surge. Ditto for layoff-related litigation.

“Lawyers serve as society’s general problem solvers,” legal scholars Paul Brest and Linda Hamilton Krieger wrote some years ago. When tough times hit, that increases the supply of problems that need solving.

At Nixon Peabody , a leading global law firm headquartered in Boston, chief executive Stephen Zubiago says he’s “very concerned about the economy.” But he also says that even in a downturn, when some lines of business slow down, “we tend to hold onto talent a little longer” than in other industries.?

Other areas with low anxiety about layoffs and budget cuts include administrative work (23%), military and protective services (25%), community and social services (25%) and accounting (26%). It’s striking that several of these roles — such as police officers or social workers — also fit into the category of society’s problem solvers.

Think of them as a recession’s essential workers.

At the other end of the spectrum, jitters about possible layoffs or budget cuts are especially high for people working in product management (46%), quality assurance (40%) and marketing (39%).

All these roles are closely associated with new product rollouts. In a recession, when customer demand is weak, organizations may be a lot less inclined to keep their expensive innovation cycles going at full strength.

Two innovative parts of the U.S. economy — tech and finance — already have started paring back their workforces. As learning and talent management expert Josh Bersin wrote earlier this year: “In many cases, companies have over-hired from the boom, so there are just too many people running around.”

With industry layoffs already in the mix, it’s no wonder that finance (37%) and information technology (also 37%) are two lines of work where anxieties about job loss and budget cuts are strong.?

On the bright side, U.S. household finances are stronger this year than they’ve been in a long time. As Brookings Institution researchers documented earlier this year , people’s savings have climbed, in large part because of federal stimulus support and reduced spending during the Covid-19 pandemic. The value of people’s homes and investment portfolios have generally risen from a few years ago, too, despite some recent setbacks.

So, even if setbacks might be in store, 45% of those surveyed for the Workforce Confidence Index say they feel prepared for an economic downturn. That’s significantly ahead of the 37% that say they aren’t prepared. (The rest either didn’t reply or are in the middle.)

Methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 3,000 to? 5,000 U.S.-based members respond to each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners and retirees are excluded from analysis so we can get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. Data is weighted by engagement level to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership and the overall market population are not accounted for.

Allison Lewis and Sharon Resheff ? from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article