Michael Lee
June 08, 2021
When it comes to hiring trends and job opportunities, people too often rely on anecdotal or very niche evidence. That’s where Brian Xu, the Senior Data Scientist at LinkedIn, can help. He previously shared data-driven insights on the economic impacts from COVID-19 as part of Prezi’s Big Ideas campaign. Now he’s back with a Q2 2021 update (created with Prezi Video) on hiring, migration, and opportunity. Watch his video here or read on to learn more about what’s changed since last year.
Fluctuations in hiring rate
To calculate how hiring has changed, Brian looked at the number of LinkedIn members who added a new employer to the profile (in the same month that new job began) divided by the total number of LinkedIn members in that country.
In analyzing the data, he highlights a dramatic decrease in hiring in Brazil as COVID cases have spiked in recent weeks. The United States and France saw minor decreases, while hiring in China has stabilized. On the other hand, the United Kingdom and Australia actually saw increases in their hiring. Brian postulates that as more people get vaccinated from COVID-19, you’ll see a similar correlation in new jobs.
Going beyond the big city
One of the key trends that Brian noticed over the past year is how fewer people migrated to the large coastal cities in the United States (namely, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C.). Instead, people increasingly looked for areas with more affordable housing prices and more space, such as Salt Lake City, Utah; Jacksonville, Florida; and Richmond, Virginia.
However, Brian points out that even though workers are leaving large cities for more affordable options, the biggest factor in the lower migration stats have to do with influx. Due to the pandemic, fewer people were able to move to cities, resulting in a migration slump over the past year.
More evenly distributed opportunities
The shifts in worker migration habits has also led to an interesting shift in job opportunities. To calculate this, Brian and LinkedIn’s Economic Graph team looked at two key measures: Average volume of job postings on LinkedIn versus the quantity of people in each area getting hired (adjusted for demographic size).
While the “usual suspects” are still on this list (Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston), he notes that there are some cities from the middle of the country appearing on this list for the first time, including Austin, Nashville, Madison, and Provo.
Stay up to date with Brian’s insights
To help you stay on top of the current job market, Brian recorded a new update on Q3 trends. Watch his latest video to see how hiring and migration numbers have changed over the last few months, and to see this data visualized on screen:
At the end of 2021, Brian recorded another update on the year-end trends. Watch his video to see how the hiring landscape has changed since his last update:
Have your own insights to share? Bring your data onto the screen with you like Brian did for a more engaging way to share your data. Create a Prezi video and tag it with #data for a chance to be featured on our Video Gallery.
