Your Hiring Pulse report for September 2024

It’s this time of the month again where we share our insights from our Workable network. Here’s the new edition of the Hiring Pulse Report – September 2024, reflecting the hiring trends of the recently completed month, August. This edition provides updated insights, key metrics, and analysis to help you understand the current state of recruitment. Let’s dive in!

In this report, as always, we explore three key metrics:

Time to Fill (TTF)

Total Job Openings (JO)

Candidates per Hire (CPH)

Each of these offers valuable insights into the hiring process, highlighting trends from both July and August to offer a comparative analysis.

1. Time to Fill (TTF)

In August, companies took an average of 43.3 days to fill positions—a decrease from July’s average of 44.2 days. 

Several factors contributed to this extended hiring process, including:

Economic caution: Stabilized interest rates and lingering financial uncertainties have led companies to adopt a more cautious approach to hiring.

Seasonal slowdown: August is often impacted by vacations and holidays, which typically reduce business activity, slowing down recruitment.

Hybrid work model challenges: The stabilization of hybrid work environments continues to create obstacles in finding candidates who can work both remotely and on-site effectively.

In July, TTF was 44.2 days, reflecting similar economic and seasonal dynamics. August shows a marginal decrease in hiring time, reflecting continued cautiousness in the market. However, these numbers are not alarming but indicative of a natural slowdown that often happens in the late summer months.

The extended TTF highlights the importance of streamlining recruitment processes to avoid falling behind in a competitive market.

Top five functions with the best time to fill

In addition to the overall hiring trends, specific job functions have shown significantly more efficient hiring processes. In August, roles in Distribution, Business Analysis, and Manufacturing saw the shortest Time to Fill, with Distribution leading the pack. 

These functions typically benefit from well-defined job requirements, which allow employers to make faster decisions. The streamlined recruitment processes for these roles are likely a result of high demand for specialized skills and clear-cut responsibilities that make candidate evaluation more straightforward.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and ADP employment report data reports highlight continued demand in certain sectors, particularly construction and health care. However, the Challenger Gray & Christmas report shows that manufacturing and technology are facing significant workforce reductions. This indicates a dichotomy between sectors still hiring and others undergoing deep cuts.

2. Total Job Openings (JO)

The average number of job openings per company has increased slightly to 8 in August, compared to 7.9 in July. 

This uptick indicates a steady recovery in the hiring landscape as businesses continue to rebound and expand their operations.

Small Businesses (1-50 employees): Job openings rose from 6.6 in July to 7 in August, reflecting renewed confidence in small business hiring.

Medium Businesses (51-200 employees): A slight increase from 6.3 to 6.5 shows consistent hiring activity in this sector.

Large Enterprises (200+ employees): These companies saw a more notable decrease, from 17 to 15.5 job openings, suggesting less strategic and gradual workforce expansion during August, which makes sense.

The continued growth from 7.3 in June to 8 job openings per company in August, thought, reflects increased confidence in hiring across all business sizes. July’s numbers were already showing signs of recovery, and August confirms that hiring demand is slowly but steadily rising.

With more job openings, companies should focus on optimizing their candidate sourcing and evaluation processes to avoid being overwhelmed by the higher volumes of applicants.

3. Candidates per Hire (CPH)

The number of candidates per hire remains high, with an average of 183 candidates for every job filled in August. This is an increase from 175.7 in July, signaling that competition for jobs remains fierce.

This aligns with other employment reports, such as those from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Challenger Gray & Christmas, and ADP employment report, indicating a highly competitive job market.

AI and HR technology: The use of AI-driven recruitment tools continues to expand candidate pipelines, contributing to the higher number of applicants per job.

Labor market trends: The competitive job market persists, as economic uncertainties push more job seekers into the market. The increase in candidates reflects a highly competitive hiring environment.

In July, the CPH was 175.7, slightly down from previous months. However, the numbers have surged again in August, driven by a larger pool of job seekers and more companies turning to AI to source candidates.

The high CPH emphasizes the need for efficient candidate filtering and assessment processes. Companies should leverage technology and clear job requirements to manage the large volume of applications effectively.

What’s going on here?

The current hiring landscape is marked by cautious optimism, where businesses are gradually resuming hiring efforts but remain mindful of economic uncertainties. Companies are navigating a complex environment of stabilized interest rates, evolving hybrid work models, and high candidate expectations. 

These factors are slowing down hiring decisions, as businesses take more time to assess candidates and negotiate flexible work arrangements. Additionally, the usual seasonal slowdown in August, coupled with the complexities of hybrid work, has added to the extended timelines for recruitment.

At the same time, the surge in job openings and candidate applications reflects both a growing demand for talent and heightened competition in the job market. Businesses are increasingly leveraging technology, such as AI-powered recruitment tools, to widen their talent pools, which has further intensified the competition for roles. 

To succeed in this competitive landscape, companies will need to streamline their recruitment processes, adapt quickly to the demands of the modern workforce, and maintain a delicate balance between being thorough in their hiring decisions and acting swiftly to secure top talent.

Next steps for you:

Optimize your time to fill: Streamline internal processes, improve communication, and leverage technology to reduce the time it takes to fill positions.

Embrace AI: As the number of candidates per hire remains high, AI can help filter and assess candidates efficiently.

Stay tuned for more insights in the next Hiring Pulse Report! For feedback or questions, send an email to [email protected] with “Hiring Pulse” in the subject line.

The Hiring Pulse: Methodology

Because one of the three metrics (Job Openings) is different from the other two metrics (Time to Fill and Candidates per Hire), we’re adopting two very distinct methodologies.

To bring the best insights to small and medium (and enterprise-level) businesses worldwide, here’s what we’re doing with the Job Openings metric: we’re taking the number of job openings in a given month and dividing that by the number of active companies in our dataset, and posting that as an average. For example, if July 2022 shows the average Job Openings per company as 7.7, that simply means each company posted an average of 7.7 jobs that month.

For the Time to Fill and Candidates per Hire metrics, we’re updating our presentation approach to reflect the actual numbers from our network, moving away from the previous index-based method. This change will provide a more accurate and transparent view of the data.

The majority of the data is sourced from businesses across the Workable network, making it a powerful resource for SMBs when planning their own hiring strategy.