Job-based optimism fades in tech but runs strong in two other fields

Are you feeling good about your prospects of finding or keeping a job these days? Or is that a topic that makes you shiver?

The overall U.S. mood remains positive these days, though not quite as upbeat as it was at the start of 2023. LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index – which surveys many thousands of professionals every month – found that May’s job confidence stood at +51, down four points from January’s +55. Sentiment is measured on a scale from -100 (most worried) to +100 (most confident.)?

Dig deeper by industry, and some surprising disparities emerge. As the chart below shows, job-related optimism is spreading in fields such as healthcare and manufacturing. At the other extreme, industries such as finance, professional services and tech are entering more anxious times.

What crucial factors in the labor market – or the broader economy – are causing such fluctuations? Let’s take a closer look at each of the five major industries highlighted in the chart.

Hospitals and healthcare: There’s been a big turnaround here since 2020-21, when job-related sentiment in health care was noticeably gloomier. The onset of the COVID pandemic brought giant workloads and impossible-to-ignore risks for frontline care providers. Burnout and attrition were on the rise.?

Now, conditions are a lot calmer, while a lingering staffing shortage is bumping up health care’s pay rates all over the United States. Demand is intense for almost every aspect of care, going beyond just for doctors and nurses.?

Radiation therapists, for example, now can land a $2,500 sign-on bonus to work in Cleveland – or $5,000 to ply their skills in Miami, Chicago or Ashville, N.C. Ever bigger offers are available in some underserved areas, such as $10,000 in Portland, Maine, or $15,000 in Spalding, Idaho.?

Even health-care administrators are being courted, says Shannon Streibich, chair-elect of the Michigan hospital association. "We have a tremendous need for folks that are accounting professionals, other finance professionals, planners, writers and marketing experts,” she recently told The Detroit News.?

Manufacturing: After years of seeing manufacturing jobs head overseas, that trend may be reversing. Federal data shows that manufacturing job openings have been averaging about 660,000 this spring, well ahead of a hiring rate of about 400,000. The sector’s jobless rate has dropped to just 2.7%.

Manufacturing also has seen shrinkage (and aging) in its workforce in recent years. As a result, even if overall manufacturing demand has its choppy moments, there’s strong demand for new workers to replace those retiring.

In addition, plenty of new plants are coming on board, many of them being built by overseas companies eager to boost their U.S. presence. Taiwan’s TSMC is putting up a giant semiconductor fabrication facility in Arizona; Germany’s Siemens is building an electric-charger factory in Texas.

Financial services: This industry has faced more than its share of jarring news in recent months. March’s meltdown of Silicon Valley Bank and its subsequent, government-assisted sale to First Citizens Bank made the biggest headlines, but various convulsions in the crypto and web3 sectors had an impact, too.

Meanwhile, big banks’ rush to add staff – which was running strong in 2021-22 – is slowing down. “We built up people and we're bringing that back down in line,” Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan told Wall Street analysts in April.

Professional services: Many professional services firms – particularly the consulting sector giants – aren’t just slowing down their hiring; they have been throwing those gears into reverse.?

In March, Accenture said it would be cutting 19,000 jobs worldwide, or 2.5% of its workforce, over the next 18 months. In April, EY said it would be cutting 5% of its U.S. workforce, or 3,000 jobs. McKinsey and Deloitte have been trimming staff, too.?

Consulting firms also are among the most vocal and enthusiastic in championing artificial intelligence tools (such as large language models) as a way of being more productive and innovative. Will that translate into more restructuring and job cuts? The answer isn’t yet obvious, but it’s a potential stress point for consultants wondering if some of their current skills have only transient value.

Tech: Talented, ambitious and sometimes prone to frustrations. Even in boom times, tech workers stand out as a group that’s never stress-free. It's no surprise that anxieties have increased lately, given the unexpected arrival of more than 200,000 tech layoffs worldwide in 2023.

Another concern that may be especially intense for tech: tensions relating to where people work. Many engineers feel they’re most productive – and comfortable – when working remotely. Increasingly, though, large company CEOs have been using their clout to nudge (or tug) workers back on site.?

For what it's worth, tech employees’ confidence about their job prospects has perked up slightly from a low of +37 in April. New opportunities in AI and virtual reality may be brightening some moods. A rally in tech stocks probably doesn’t hurt, either.

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 Anat Zohar from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article