Over 150 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 50,000 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 | US hiring levels off - Across all industries, gross hiring in the US was 3.8% higher than in October 2017. Seasonally-adjusted national hiring was steady, down just 0.3% from September to October 2018. Hiring has levelled out since the late summer, but time will tell whether we’re seeing a temporary breather or a more sustained pause. The industries with the biggest year-over-year hiring increases in October were public safety (10.3% higher), corporate services (10.2% higher), and software & IT services (9.7% higher).

• Skills Gaps | San Francisco has the nation’s largest skills gap - The US labor market is tightening, which translates to growing national skills shortages and shrinking national skills surpluses. This is good news for workers with skills in high demand, but increasingly challenging for employers to seek out new talent pools to find workers with the skills they need. San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles continue to top the list of cities with largest gross shortages, whereas New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia top the list of cities with largest gross surpluses. Check out their reports for the breakdown of skills in shortage and skills in surplus in each city.

• Migration | Austin, Denver, and Nashville continue to attract workers - Austin, Denver, and Nashville continue to attract the most workers across the US. For every 10,000 LinkedIn members in Austin, 121 arrived in the last 12 months. Conversely, the cities losing the most people are Wichita, KS; State College, PA; and Bryan-College Station, TX.

Hiring | US hiring levels off

The LinkedIn hiring rate is a measure of gross hires divided by LinkedIn membership. Nationally, across all industries, gross hiring in the U.S. was 3.8% higher than in October 2017.

Seasonally-adjusted national hiring was steady, down just 0.3% in October from September 2017.

The industries with the biggest year-over-year hiring increases in October were public safety (10.3% higher); corporate services (10.2% higher); and software & IT services (9.7% higher).

Skills Gaps | San Francisco has the nation’s largest skills gap

(Note: We recently updated the skills gap methodology in the LinkedIn Workforce Report to include absolute headcounts to precisely measure skills gaps. To learn more about this updated methodology, see here.)

A skills gap is the gap between supply and demand for a specific skill, in a specific local labor market, at a specific point in time. That means that skills gaps are fundamentally local, and specific to the supply and demand of individual skills within a labor market. The U.S. cities with the largest skills gaps overall are New York City, NY; San Francisco Bay Area, CA; and Los Angeles, CA.

San Francisco Bay Area, CA; New York City, NY; and Los Angeles, CA also see the greatest shortages across all skills. To see which skills are driving these massive shortages, check out our localized reports.

The cities with the greatest surpluses across all skills are New York City, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and Chicago, IL.

Check out our localized 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 top skills in demand locally and other insights.

Migration | Austin, Denver, and Nashville continue to attract workers

The U.S. cities losing the most people are Wichita, KS; State College, PA; and Bryan-College Station, TX. For every 10,000 LinkedIn members in Wichita, KS, 292 left in the past 12 months.

The U.S. cities gaining the most people are Austin, TX; Denver, CO; and Nashville, TN. For every 10,000 LinkedIn members in Austin, TX, 121 arrived in the last 12 months.

Austin, TX; Denver, CO; and San Diego, CA are the U.S. cities experiencing the most total migration (workers moving into and out of a city). This list captures the most transient cities. For every 10,000 LinkedIn members in Austin, TX, 716 arrived in or left the city 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 skills are in shortage in those cities, and which jobs are open.