The December jobs report showed employers hiring at a faster pace than Wall Street anticipated. But which industries are hiring, seeing the biggest number of hires? ZipRecruiter Chief Economist Julia Pollak sat down with TheStreet’s J.D. Durkin to discuss how just three sectors were responsible for 92 percent of the hires over the past six months.
Full Video Transcript Below:
J.D. DURKIN: Are there any specific industries or sectors in the U.S. economy experiencing notable hiring or notable job growth right now that you’re seeing?
JULIA POLLAK: Well, over the past six months, just three major sectors have been responsible for 92% of all the jobs added in the U.S. economy. Those are health care, the government, and leisure and hospitality. Healthcare is just steady and stable. It’s pretty recession proof and it is the sector expected to add the most jobs of the next 10 years due to demographic change and aging population and increased need and demand for health care services. The government is playing catch up. Public sector hiring took much, much, much longer to recover from the pandemic than private sector hiring, partly because the public sector is just slower when it comes to raising wages and adjusting. We are seeing that adjustment now. And so finally, as the private sector pulls back and cools down, the public sector is becoming more competitive and is having an easier time recruiting and retaining workers. The leisure and hospitality Americans like going out to restaurants and traveling.
J.D. DURKIN: Hey, listen, we love the experience economy. We have seen time and time again the U.S. consumer is willing to spend on those things, whatever concert or a trip to Europe or whatever it is that we want. I wonder what else are you seeing in the data at ZipRecruiter in terms of job openings, any trends or anything you’ve seen that might even be a bit of a surprise, I wonder?
JULIA POLLAK: Yeah, we’re actually seeing a little bit of an uptick in tech job openings, and I think that’s very encouraging. After a year, which could quite accurately be described as a tech-session in which the whole information sector shed jobs and was very, very slow to hire. So that does appear to be changing now. And partly that’s because the stock market has had a pretty good year in 2023.
