Over 174 million workers in the U.S. have LinkedIn profiles; over 20,000 companies in the U.S. use LinkedIn to recruit; over 3 million jobs are posted on LinkedIn in the U.S. every month; and members can add over 36,000 skills to their profiles to showcase their professional brands. That gives us unique and valuable insight into U.S. workforce trends.

This LinkedIn Workforce Report is a monthly report on employment trends in the U.S. workforce. It’s divided into two sections: a National section that provides insights into hiring, skills gaps, and migration trends across the country, and a City section that provides insights into localized employment trends in 20 of the largest U.S. metro areas: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland-Akron, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.

Our vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Whether you’re a worker, an employer, a new grad, or a policymaker, we hope you’ll use these insights to better understand and navigate the dynamics of today’s economy.

Key Insights

• Hiring in the U.S. during November inched up 0.8% from October 2020. While these are more modest gains compared to earlier in the fall, hiring is inching closer to recovery and moving at a much faster pace than projected: nationally, hiring is only 4.2% lower than in November 2019. 

• Across industries, our data shows positive month-over-month momentum building in: Corporate Services (+9%); Energy & Mining (+8.6%); and Hardware & Networking (+6.9%) -- but Energy & Mining remains among the industries furthest from year-over-year recovery (-23.5%). Industries that have moved into recovery with year-over-year gains include: Transportation & Logistics (+9.9%), Health Care (+7.6%), Corporate Services (+6.4% y/y), Wellness and Fitness (+4.7%), Retail (+1.7%) and Real Estate (+1.3%).  

• As we look at cities that are faring the best nationally, we see strong correlation to members who are moving to them. Hiring has risen just above or at the same levels we saw last year in Denver (+1%) and Austin (0%), with Phoenix (-0.5%) not far behind. These cities are also among those experiencing the highest net migration during the month of November.  

• Meanwhile, traditional knowledge hubs like San Francisco (-13%), Washington, DC (-11%), New York (-9.4%) and Los Angeles (-7.7%) are among the areas struggling the most to recover from COVID -- and we’re seeing that that those cities are also seeing the steepest declines in net arrivals compared to before the pandemic. 

Hiring

The LinkedIn hiring rate is a measure of hires divided by LinkedIn membership. Nationally, across all industries, hiring in the U.S. was 4.2% lower than in November 2019. National hiring was 0.8% higher in November from October 2020.

The industries with the most notable hiring shifts month-to-month in November were Corporate Services (9% higher m/m); Energy & Mining (8.6% higher m/m); and Hardware & Networking (6.9% higher m/m).

Table 1: Hiring on LinkedIn, by Industry, through November 2020

Migration

The U.S. cities losing the most people are Bryan-College Station, TX; State College, PA; and Urbana-Champaign, IL. For every 10,000 LinkedIn members in Bryan-College Station, TX, 272 left in the past 12 months.

The U.S. cities gaining the most people are Austin, TX; Charlotte, NC; and Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL. For every 10,000 LinkedIn members in Austin, TX, 140 arrived in the last 12 months.

Check out our reports for

Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland-Akron, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. to see which jobs are open.