Hiring statistics
2019 has come to an end and the magnifying glass on this year’s HR and recruitment trends has already begun to heat up. To help you sift through the numbers, we’ve put together a list of over 100 powerful hiring and job statistics for 2020. The numbers have been crunched by the likes of The Bureau of Labor Statistics, iCIMS, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Deloitte, Jobvite, CareerBuilder, SilkRoad, Pew Research Center, Forbes, CNBC, PayScale, and the Society for Human Resources Management.
What we do know from the last few years is that the paradigm has shifted int he US and it’s recently been a candidate’s market. There’s now a higher number of job openings than there are people to fill them. This does have a knock-on effect and alters the landscape of hiring completely.Regardless of these encouraging numbers for job-seekers, a skills-shortage still remains.
There are many questions for candidates and their employers alike to consider when formulating their strategy for the new year. Especially since the year 2020 is seen by many as the culture-first decade for employers.
If you want to attract the top talent or the right candidates, your hiring strategy should take into account these latest recruiting-market research findings.
Talent shortage job statistics
- 83% of professional HR respondents have had trouble recruiting suitable candidates in the past 12 months. (SHRM)
- Of these, over one-third reported a decrease in applicant quality across the board, and 45% report a decrease in quality for specific positions. (SHRM)
Image credit: SHRM - 75% of HR professionals have difficulty recruiting believe there is a skills shortage among their applicants. (SHRM)
- 51% of respondents say education systems have done little or nothing to help address the talent shortage issue. (SHRM)
- In regards to the tech-talent shortage, by 2020, there will be 1.4 million computer science jobs and only 400,000 computer science grads who have the necessary skills. (The White House)
- Roles for companies that are most difficult to fill include data analytics, security, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and IT architecture. (Monster)
- Research conducted by Korn Ferry estimated the labor skills shortage in the APAC region at 47 million by 2030, with unrealized output an eye-watering $4.238 trillion. (Korn Ferry)
- The top missing soft skills are problem-solving, critical thinking, innovation and creativity (37%), ability to deal with complexity and ambiguity (32%), and communication (31%). (SHRM)
Image credit: SHRM
Job search statistics
- The average job search time in 2019 indicates that the average duration of unemployment was 22.1 weeks. (BLS)
- 36% of HR managers say the best time for applicants to follow up is one to two weeks after submitting their resume. (Accountemps)
Image source: Accountemps
- How long do employers take to respond to applications? 44% hear back within a couple weeks of applying, 37% within one week and only 4% within a day. (Indeed)
- In 2019, it took employees 55 days to fill a non-tech position and 66 days to fill a technical role (up from 45 days and 55 days in 2016 respectively). (iCIMS)
Image source: iCIMS
Job statistics
- How many applicants per job are there, you ask? Well in 2018, the average number of applicants per job was the lowest ever, at just 29 (down from 36 in 2017 and 52 in 2016). (Jobvite)
- What about how many job applications per week? Well if there is a conservative estimate of 7.3 million job openings in the U.S per month, that’s ~87 million a year. Divide that by the number of firms operating in the U.S, 5.9 million, and that’s roughly 15 job openings per business per year. Multiply that by the number of applicants per job, which is 118, according to Forbes, and divide that by the number of weeks in a year, 52, and the result is approximately 34 applications per week per business. (DevSkiller)
- As we noted last year, the global talent shortage is at a 12 year high. (ManpowerGroup)
- Over 50% of respondents feel that skills shortages have worsened or greatly worsened in their organizations in the last two years. (SHRM)
- Less than 10% of respondents report skills shortage improvements. (SHRM)
Resume statistics
- Recruiters take an average of six seconds to scan a resume. (TheLadders)
Image source: TheLadders - An estimated 77% of hiring managers immediately disqualify resumes because of grammatical mistakes or typos. (The Motley Fool)
- 75% of employers have caught a lie on a resume. (CareerBuilder)
- 84% of applicants submit an impersonal application (forgetting to include the hiring manager’s name) – a top reason for resume rejection. (CareerBuilder)
- An unprofessional email address is a major problem for 35% of employers. (The Motley Fool)
Job interview statistics
- The average number of interviews before getting a job offer (interview to hire) for the IT sector in the US is 15. (Workable) Image source: Workable
- The average amount of time from interview to offer for new college grads is 24.5 days. (The Balance Careers)
- The average conversion rate from interview to offer was 19% in 2018. (Jobvite)
Sourcing statistics
- Employee referral still remains the top source leading to hires at 56%, Indeed is next at 17%. (SilkRoad)
Image source: SilkRoad - Indeed is the top platform used for job hire at 66%, followed by LinkedIn (24%) and Glassdoor (6%). (SilkRoad)
- In 2018, the number of visitors to a job board website needed to make one hire was 177, down from 526 in 2016. (Jobvite)
- An organization’s career website, is 2X more effective than job boards in leading to hires. (Jobvite)
- Over 98% of Fortune 500 Companies use applicant recruitment software. (Medium)
- 82% of companies are using some form of pre-employment assessment test. (SHRM)
- 78% of HR professionals found recruiting and HCM software improved the hiring process (Technology Advice)
Diversity statistics
- Diverse companies have a 2.3 times higher cash flow per employee than non-diverse ones. (Source: Deloitte)
- Companies with diverse management have 19% higher revenue. (Source: BCG)
- Diverse teams are 90% more likely to be innovative. . (BackOffice Pro)
- Caucasians received 50% more callbacks than those of African descent. (EBI, Inc.)
- Teams where men and women are equal earn 41% more revenue. (Forbes)
- Bilingual employees earn up to 10-15% more revenue than their peers. (Euro London)
Candidate experience statistics
- 69% of job seekers who had a negative candidate experience will rarely or never apply again. (Talentegy)
- More than two-thirds of employed American agree that the application, interview or offer process would make or break their decision on whether to take a job. (iCIMS)
- Around 63% of job seekers are dissatisfied with the communication from most employers after applying. (Talentegy)
- Nearly 7-in-10 people use Google as part of their typical process to search for open jobs and research potential employers. (iCIMS)
Image source: iCIMS - 59% of candidates have abandoned an online application due to issues or bugs on the website. (iCIMS)
- Only 18% of companies use employee testimonials on their LinkedIn landing page. (Beamery)
Job growth statistics
- The unemployment rate in the U.S decreased to 3.5% in November 2019 from 3.6% in the previous month – the lowest since 1969. (Statista) This is the view of the employment rate in the last five years (Trading Economics)
Image source: Trading Economics - Through the first three quarters of 2019, tech sector hiring is up by nearly 100,000 jobs. It added more than 11,000 new jobs in August. (CompTIA via Channel Partners)
- Employment of computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 12% from 2018 to 2028. (BLS)
- These new tech occupations are projected to add about 546,200 new jobs, up from 200,000 in 2017. (BLS)
- The employment of web developers is projected to grow 13% from 2018 to 2028, much faster than the average for all occupations. (BLS)
Employer branding statistics
- Employees are three times more likely to be a trusted source of information compared to the employer. (LinkedIn)
- The most effective talent branding tools include company websites (68%), online professional networks and social media. (LinkedIn)
- 39% of women consider the company’s brand as “very important” prior to deciding to apply, while the same is true for 33% of men. (Glassdoor)
Image source: Glassdooor - More than half of job seekers abandoned their application upon reading a negative review of the company (55%), while only 45% of employers check their company’s online reputation. (CareerArc)
Talent engagement statistics
- 92% of employees believe showing empathy is an important way to advance employee retention. (Deloitte)
- An employee gets 561% more engagement on a message shared on social media compared to when the same message shared by the company. (Sociabble)
- 70% of companies offer wellness programs to employees. (Optum)
- Only 14% of companies have identified the culture of health. (Optum)
Image source: Business Wire
Salary statistics
- Overall, 57% of job candidates in the US consider benefits and perks as the top factors to take the job. (Glassdoor)
- The same study showed that about 80% of employees prefer more benefits over a salary increase. (Glassdoor)
- This is corroborated by another study that reported 58% of employees who actually took a pay cut for a happier work setup. (Atomik Research)
Top skills job statistics
- The top priority for talent developers to focus on in 2019 and 2020 is addressing the skills gap, while learner engagement, the second priority remains a critical and constant challenge. (LinkedIn)
Image source: LinkedIn - Around 57% of senior leaders today say soft skills are more important than hard skills. (LinkedIn)
- Creativity is at the top of the list of the soft skills employers want the most. The next most in-demand soft skills employers look for are persuasion, collaboration, adaptability and time management. (LinkedIn)
- The most in-demand general hard skills in 2019 were analytical reasoning, people management, sales leadership, translation, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. (LinkedIn)
- The top hard skills in tech that employers look for in 2020 are Python, React (web), Angular, machine learning, Docker, Django, CompTIA, Amazon AWS, deep learning, and React Native (mobile). (CNBC)
- Communication and conversational skills are seen to be highly desirable with marketing data scientists becoming one of the most-sought after professions in tech after Glassdoor named data science the top job in America. (Glassdoor)
Employee satisfaction statistics
- Job satisfaction sits at 68%, up from 61% in 2018. (Jobvite)
Image source: Jobvite - 34% of employees are currently dissatisfied or extremely dissatisfied with communications they’re experiencing at their workplace. (Ragan)
- 9 out of 10 American workers would take a pay cut if they had a meaningful position.(BetterUps via CNBC)
- The best employee satisfaction drivers are workplaces with a clear mission to connect employees, high-quality senior leaders who are inspiring and empathetic, and a set of clearly-defined pathways upward for workers. (Glassdoor)
Competency mapping statistics
- Up to 1.4 million workers will need reskilling by 2026. From this, over 70% will be affected because their job type ceases to exist. (Go-Globe)
Image source: Go-Globe - 86% of HR managers rated the issue of learning and development important or very important. (Deloitte)
- 73% of employers said fostering employee development is important, but only 49% of employees said leadership is adhering to this practice. (Randstad via SHRM)
Workforce learning statistics
- Identical to last year, the #1 priority for learning and development is to train soft skills to prepare the workforce for the impact of automation. (LinkedIn)
- 58% of employees prefer to work at their own pace. (LinkedIn)
- The #1 reason employees say they are not engaging in workplace learning is because they don’t have the time. Executives agree that getting employees to make time for learning is the #1 challenge for talent development. (LinkedIn)
Image source: LinkedIn
HR onboarding statistics
- 55% of businesses say they don’t measure the effectiveness of onboarding programs. (Kronos via BusinessWire)
- 87% of businesses find assigning a mentor or a buddy during the onboarding process as very effective. (HCI via G2)
- Employees with good onboarding experience are 18x more likely to feel highly committed to their companies. (BambooHR)
Developer hiring statistics
- In 2020, an estimated 1 million computer programming-related jobs in the US are expected to be unfilled. (TechRepublic)
- There are less than 50,000 Computer Science graduates in 2017. But, there are over 500,000 open computing positions in the United States. (Code.org)
- Training and education are the #1 disparity between benefits tech pros find important vs. those they currently have. (Dice)
Source: Dice -
Image source: DevSkiller - Candidates wait on average 2.27 days to take a coding test. (DevSkiller)
- Latvian developers score the highest (54.65%) on coding tests, followed by The Netherlands (52.32%) and Italy (52.26%). (DevSkiller)
- Coding tests sent on Wednesdays get the fastest response. (DevSkiller)
Image source: DevSkiller - React, Spring, C#, MySQL, HTML, Data Analysis with Python, and Laravel are the most popular technologies in their respective tech stacks. (DevSkiller)
- The US recruits a quarter of all overseas developer candidates. (DevSkiller)
- Colleges and universities graduated a little less than 30,000 new computer science majors every year. With this current pace, it might take about 8 years to match the open job roles. (Full Scale)
- Tech has the highest average employee turnover rate of all sectors (13.2%). (LinkedIn)
- The average tenure for tech employees is estimated at around 3 years. (The BLS)
- More than 34.6% of developers changed jobs less than a year ago. (Stack Overflow)
Image source: Stack Overflow
HR trends statistics
- Millennials represent 50% of the workforce worldwide and they are projected to represent 75% of the workforce by 2025. (Polly)
Image source: Polly - 56% of organizations have completed a full talent market study within the last 12 months in 2019. (PayScale)
- Only 39% of U.S. employees receive company-culture training during onboarding. (TalentLMS)
Hiring and job statistics: key takeaways
The year 2020, as previously mentioned, is the year of the culture-first decade.
The growing global economy is unable to keep up with its demands for skilled workers and those in charge of the purse-strings have sat up and began to take notice.
Employee retention will be an enormous focus for the decade.
Organizations will be wise to further themselves in providing their workers with an optimum work/life balance. After all, at least in the tech-sphere, the cost to hire is becoming increasingly unaffordable.
I strongly recommend the resources mentioned in this article if you want to have a full understanding of the subject. Are there any other statistics that you’d like to see on the list? Let me know in the comments section below!
Image credits: Pexels
