Is Recruiter Recruitment an Oracle for the Future?

Revelio Labs x Appcast: Recruiters are fighting for new jobs, but some industries are hiring again

• Since the pandemic, the hiring rate of recruiters has been a leading indicator of hiring in the broader economy, anticipating trends by about three months.
• While demand for recruiters has partially recovered after the slump in 2023, recruiters still face a tough market, with increasingly competitive application processes for new jobs.
• Some industries are ramping up their recruitment of recruiters. Such industries include Electronics Manufacturing, which has seen a 75% increase in Q3 recruiter hiring relative to Q1 2024.

Recruiters play a pivotal role in connecting talent with opportunities, ensuring an efficient hiring process and productive experiences for both candidates and companies. They often go above and beyond to facilitate successful hires, matching the right people with the right positions. In fact, recruiters' own job prospects tell an important story about the economy as a whole. In today’s newsletter, in collaboration with Appcast, we explore how trends in the recruiting job market reflect broader economic conditions and analyze the current state of the recruiting profession.

Recruiting is a highly cyclical profession, booming when companies expand and shrinking even more sharply during downturns. As we have previously shown, 2021 was the year to recruit recruiters, with this trend continuing to reach its peak by mid 2022. Currently, recruiters are facing a challenging job market: As Revelio Labs’ workforce data shows, their hiring rate has dropped over 10 percentage points since its peak in July 2022, which coincided with the post-pandemic hiring surge. This cyclical nature also makes recruiting an indicator for the broader economy. Trends in recruiter hiring often precede shifts in the wider labor market, with peaks and troughs typically leading to similar patterns in other sectors by about three months.

Read the full story here.

Have a good day!

Loujaina Abdelwahed, PhD and Anna A. | Economists at Revelio Labs

In collaboration with Sam Kuhn Appcast, Inc