The Great Reshuffle in 2022: Top Trends to Watch

As Chief Economist at LinkedIn, I lead a team of economists and data scientists that unearth the most interesting insights from over 800M global members. Every month I’ll share a snapshot of key trends to help shed light on where the world of work is headed. This month, we’re looking at the Great Reshuffle 2022 Report.

As we start the new year still amidst a period of unprecedented change we call the Great Reshuffle, a reset is happening. In the relationship between employers and employees, and between individuals and the role they want work to play in their lives. To help people better understand and track these key shifts, today I'm sharing our Great Reshuffle Report. In this report, our team identified three key areas of change worth watching this year: How We Work, Where We Work, and Why We Work.?

We’re following shifts in these areas throughout the year with a goal of helping the world better understand these seismic changes that impact all of us. As the world’s largest professional network where one person gets a job every 15 seconds and with over 800M members and 58M companies on our platform, LinkedIn has the ability to spot trends early to help paint a clearer picture of the evolving labor market and a unique perspective on what’s driving these changes.

In March 2020 only every 1 in 67 paid jobs in the U.S. offered remote work. By the start of 2022 that number has ballooned to about 1 in 6. On top of that, remote jobs currently attract over 2.5 times the share of job applications compared to on-site jobs. Even with return-to-office dates still shifting, workers’ interest in remote and hybrid options shows no signs of slowing.

And according to LinkedIn Glint survey data, 87% of employees would prefer to stay remote at least half of the time, even after it’s safe to return to their workplace. Employers in many sectors are having to recalibrate their policies and approach to keep pace with this surge of interest in remote and flexible work.?

By the end of 2021, the share of U.S. LinkedIn members changing jobs rose 37% compared to 2020, and over 32% compared to 2019. And our U.S. Workforce Report showed November 2021 saw the highest hiring levels on record since we began recording this data in 2015. While the hiring spree may settle down, this sustained trend suggests we’ve entered into a “worker’s economy”—a new labor market dynamic we haven’t seen in decades where job seekers are having an easier time finding and securing better job opportunities, with far less competition. Workers are even job hopping within their own companies, as the share of members being promoted increased by 9% in 2021, a strong rebound from the early pandemic dip in promotions.

We’re also seeing shifts in where we work play out on the city level—with the rise of remote empowering many to “work from anywhere”. LinkedIn data shows areas like Miami, FL (+17%), Jacksonville, FL (+14%), and Tampa, FL (+10%), emerged as the biggest gainers of talent inflows, while San Francisco, CA (-15%), Portland, OR (-13%), and Seattle, WA (-11.7%) saw the greatest outflows of workers.?

The fight for talent has become fierce, and across many sectors, employees have the upper hand. More than we’ve seen in decades, workers are leveraging their skills and experiences to demand more from their employers to get precisely what they want. New data from LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends 2022 highlighted below sheds light on the key areas workers care most about their current jobs, and what entices them to jump to the next opportunity.?

Flexibility is key to attracting and retaining top talent: When employees are satisfied with their companies’ time and location flexibility, they are 2.6X more likely to report being happy. And LinkedIn has seen an 83% increase in job posts mentioning flexibility since 2019.

Job seekers are choosier about finding the right fit: We’ve seen a 2X increase in job posts viewed per application in 2021 compared to 2019.

Work-life balance is the top factor for most job seekers: Even over compensation and benefits and colleagues and culture, work-life balance is emerging as the most critical factor when workers’ weigh a new opportunity.?

Beyond our top three areas, a few other emerging trends to watch throughout the year:

Gen Z is job hopping at highly elevated rates: While this is to be expected among younger workers, the increase in Gen Z job changing (+134% over 2019) far exceeds that of Millennials (+24% over 2019), and Boomers (- 4% from 2019). Data from Global Talent Trends 2022 also shows that Gen Z values flexibility more than other workers. Gen Z’s likelihood to engage with a company posting on LinkedIn if it mentions flexibility is far higher (+77%) than Millennials (+30%) and others on the platform.

Hiring comeback for women at work:? Women’s hiring fell sharply during the start of the pandemic, but women have shown resilience in the 2021 recovery - with the share of women hires on LinkedIn now up to nearly 48% in the U.S. as more women get back into the workforce. Women are also leading the way when it comes to starting new businesses, with the number of women-founded companies on LinkedIn up 27% in the pandemic period vs the pre-pandemic period, while the number of male-founded companies grew by only 17% during the same period.

Surge in entrepreneurship and creator economy: ?We’ve seen a surge in overall entrepreneurship activity over the past year. LinkedIn members are starting new businesses at an unprecedented rate, with company formation on the platform spiking in 2020 at over 56% YoY and remaining elevated over pre-pandemic levels throughout 2021. In a similar vein, the rise of the creator economy has also taken off during the pandemic era. As of September 2021, members with “creator” in their job title was up 40% from 2019. And premium job postings with “creator” in the title are up 220% from 2020.?

We'll continue to share updates on how the state of How, Where, and Why we work is changing as new trends in our data emerge this year. Stay tuned and let us know your reactions and questions in the comments.

?? LinkedIn Data In The News?

• 60 Minutes: Why more Americans are quitting their jobs than ever before
• BBC: Why there's no 'best' month to quit your job
• Fortune: Hiring for crypto and blockchain jobs is exploding

Thanks to the team who helps bring this newsletter to life. Wondering how we calculate these numbers every month? See below for the methodologies behind this update.?

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Remote Work: A “remote job” is defined as one where either the job poster explicitly labeled it as “remote” or if the job contained keywords like “work from home” in the listing. The share of remote jobs is calculated in proportion to all paid job postings. LinkedIn analyzed over 1.5 million paid remote job postings in the United States posted since January 2020.?

LinkedIn Hiring Rate The LinkedIn Hiring Rate (LHR) is the number of LinkedIn members who added a new employer to their profile in the same month the new job began, divided by the total number of LinkedIn members in that country. By only analyzing the timeliest data, we can make month-to-month comparisons and account for any potential lags in members updating their profiles. This number is indexed to the average month in 2016; for example, an index of 1.05 indicates a hiring rate that is 5% higher than the average month in 2016.?

Migration: A migration instance is defined as a member changing their location on their LinkedIn profile. This analysis calculates the inflow-outflow ratio (number of inflows to a market area for every outflow) for U.S. metro areas that have at least 500 inflows and 500 outflows every month.?

Job Transitions: Job transitions are calculated from updates to LinkedIn profiles when a new job at a different company is created after a previous job has ended. This is divided by LinkedIn membership to account for membership growth. This share is compared to the equivalent time in 2019, before COVID, to benchmark the job transition rate against a more “typical” economic year. Student jobs, side jobs, and internships are not included. Jobs must be created on LinkedIn in the same month of the job start date to account for lag in how members update their profile.

LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends 2022: For this annual report, we interviewed 20+ HR and Talent Acquisition thought leaders across the globe who shared fantastic real-life examples and insights that bring the report to life. We also tapped into LinkedIn behavioral and research data. View the full report and learn more about the methodologies here.

Company Formation Index: The Company Formation Index (CFI) is the 3 month average count of unique companies on LinkedIn, measured by the number of LinkedIn members who added a new founder position to their profile. We only include LinkedIn members who added a founder position to their profile in the same month the new job began. By only analyzing the timeliest data, we can make accurate month-to-month comparisons and account for any potential lags in members updating their profiles.This number is then indexed to the count in January 2016 ; for example, an index of 1.05 indicates that company formation is 5% higher than in January 2016.