Hiring's fitful upturn in recent months may signal what's ahead in 2021

By George Anders and Brian Xu

Every week, LinkedIn's Economic Graph team analyzes hiring and migration trends for the United States and other key global markets. As 2020 draws to a close, that data is more than just a chronicle of this year’s extraordinary labor-market gyrations. 

This year-end review highlights ways that the 2020’s biggest trends may also provide clues of what next year might bring. Specifically:

• The jagged rebound in the overall hiring rate from the lows of last spring could well carry over into 2021 in both the U.S. and beyond. 
• Another area to watch: Will women continue to have a harder time finding and keeping jobs than men have experienced lately?
• Also on the radar: Strong odds that “the democratization of jobs” will continue, as workers move away from the biggest metro areas in favor of smaller cities or more rural locations where costs are lower and day-to-day stresses aren’t as pronounced.
• Finally, a cross-section of 2020’s most in-demand jobs reinforces the need over the next few years for enhanced skills development on a wide scale.

As the chart above shows, the LinkedIn hiring rate for practically every major economy showed its deepest slump in late April of this year, as major economies adopted lockdowns or other business restrictions in hopes of slowing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drops of 40% or more were common; France had the most severe decline at nearly 80%.

The one exception was China, which experienced its 40%-plus drop several months earlier, in February. That reflected the earlier arrival of COVID-19 in China. 

Since then, hiring rates have recovered somewhat, but generally have remained below year-earlier levels. Countries that have seen their hiring trends briefly turn positive -- notably France, Brazil and China -- have been prone to renewed declines soon afterward. 

The prospect of large-scale, effective vaccinations against COVID-19 in 2021 could brighten hiring prospects. But the rollout of nationwide vaccinations could take many months for logistical reasons alone. In the U.S., where 61% of people say they want to be vaccinated but 32% are hesitant, limited public acceptance could make it even harder to develop general immunity. 

With such uncertainties in play, a continued sawtooth pattern in hiring trends could well be part of 2021’s destiny.

While the 2008-09 global downturn had its most severe impact on male workers, the first months of this year’s slump was especially tough on female workers, as seen in the chart above. In the United States, some of the hardest-hit industries, such as restaurants and education, are ones where women account for 70% or more of the workforce.

In addition, working parents faced extreme challenges as school closings and shelter-in-place rules left them facing the triple burden of work from home, ordinary life and nonstop child care under one roof. Often those strains were felt most intensely by working mothers, making it difficult or impossible to continue normal careers. 

Women’s hiring share is back above 50% in France, and nearly at that level in the United States. But it’s anyone’s guess how 2021 will play out, and the pressures that caused this year’s inequities aren’t fully gone.

As the chart above shows, long-time job hubs such as New York and the San Francisco Bay Area lost a lot of their allure this year. Even though lockdown conditions were loosened somewhat in the summer, the autumn spikes in COVID-19 cases led to a return of strict rules about outdoor activities. With concerts, indoor dining and sports events greatly constrained, the allure of big-city living dimmed.

While frustrated workers voted with their feet (or with the tires of their U-Haul vans), smaller cities such as Jacksonville, Fla., or Salt Lake City emerged as “in” new destinations. It’s an open question whether these migrations are temporary or permanent, but sharply falling rents in New York and San Francisco suggest that some form of de-urbanization has a ways to go.  

Rounding out the list of 2020’s notable trends is LinkedIn’s list of in-demand jobs with steady growth, livable wages and skills that can be learned online. These include: software developer, sales representative, project manager, IT administrator and data analyst. 

Also in the top 10 are: customer service representative, financial analyst, digital marketer, IT support/helpdesk and graphic designer. History shows that while each year’s list of in-demand jobs rotates slightly from the previous year’s, most of these top 10 keep showing up, year after year.