Over 167 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  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 across the US saw an unprecedented drop in April, down 24% M/M and 30% Y/Y. This sharp decline was concentrated at the beginning of the month, but stabilized toward the end.
• It follows that hiring across all industries has fallen relative to where it was a year ago, but some industries are showing more resilience.
  • The least impacted industries are: hardware & networking (-8.5% Y/Y), public safety (-10.1% Y/Y), education (-15.6% Y/Y). It’s worth noting that hardware & networking was the only industry with a M/M increase (+2.3% M/M).    
  • Despite the massive demand for critical first-responders, nurses, respiratory therapists and doctors, healthcare hiring is down 19.4% Y/Y. This is likely due to the shutdown of non-essential medical care.
  •  The industries that are struggling the most are: travel & leisure (-71.1% Y/Y), real estate (-49.2% Y/Y) and construction (-45.8% Y/Y).
• When we look across the 20 largest metro areas in the U.S., we’re seeing less pronounced variation in hiring. But the cities that are proving more resilient are dominated by the industries that are weathering COVID-19 better than others.
  • The most resilient cities include: Boston (-17.7% Y/Y), a biotech hub; DC (-22.1% Y/Y), dominated by government; and Austin (-24.8% Y/Y), a tech hub.
  • The cities struggling the most include: Philadelphia (-39.2% Y/Y), Houston (-38.5% Y/Y), dominated by oil & gas; and Chicago (-38.4% Y/Y).
• We’re seeing a surge in demand for remote work -- both in the amount of jobs available, and the amount of jobseekers looking for them.
  •  The share of job listings for remote work on LinkedIn increased 28% from March 1 to March 31, and the volume of job searches involving the keywords “remote” or “work at home” jumped 42% during the same period. George Anders’ reporting has an in-depth look at the trends.

Hiring

The LinkedIn hiring rate is a measure of hires divided by LinkedIn membership. Nationally, across all industries, hiring in the U.S. was 29.6% lower than in April 2019. National hiring was 23.9% lower in April from March 2020.

The industries with the most notable hiring shifts month-to-month in April were Hardware & Networking (2.3% higher m/m); Arts (3% lower m/m); and Nonprofit (4.6% lower m/m).

Table 1: Hiring on LinkedIn, by Industry, through April 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, 260 left in the past 12 months.

The U.S. cities gaining the most people are Austin, TX; Charlotte, NC; and Seattle, WA. For every 10,000 LinkedIn members in Austin, TX, 145 arrived in the last 12 months.