Key Career & Employment Stats
for Journalists' Use
This page contains facts and statistics for journalists who report on employment and the workplace. We've provided insights on the careers and employment space, including info on job seekers, hiring managers and employers.
Job Skills & Sectors
Companies spent $83 billion on employee training in 2019, up from $55.8 billion in 2012, but slightly down from a peak of $93.6 in 2017. Training Magazine
By 2030, workers will spend 60 percent more hours on jobs that require technology skills than they did in 2016. Meanwhile, people will work 26 percent more hours on jobs that require social and emotional skills. In contrast, jobs that only require physical and manual labor skills will see 11 percent fewer hours. International Labour Organization
The vast majority of workers (87 percent) see ongoing training as important to finding success in their careers. Pew Research Center
Slightly more than half of leaders (57 percent) say soft skills are more important than hard skills. LinkedIn
The most in-demand soft skills are:
- Creativity
- Persuasion
- Collaboration
- Adaptability
- Time management
The most in-demand hard skills are:
- Cloud computing
- Artificial intelligence
- Analytical reasoning
- People management
- UX design
- Mobile application development
- Video production
- Sales leadership
- Translation
- Audio production
The job sectors that experienced the most growth between 1990 and 2015 require both hard and soft skills.
Only two sectors measured by the Pew Research Center saw negative growth.
Only two sectors measured by the Pew Research Center saw negative growth.
The skills gap costs U.S. companies more than $13 billion a month, or about $160 billion a year. Centre for Economic Policy Research
Nearly 80 percent of Americans say there's a skills gap, and more than a third of them (35 percent) say it affects them personally. Udemy
Here's how business owners say they're most affected by the skills gap:
About six out of every ten businesses (63 percent) are actively looking for candidates who demonstrate their ability to use, work with and analyze data. IBM Report
Job seekers who understand data and analytics will account for one-third of the job market by 2020, with a projected increase of 110,000 positions. IBM Report
Top 25 jobs with the greatest career opportunity in the U.S.:
- Tax manager
- Salesforce developer
- Product designer
- Strategy manager
- HR manager
- Audit manager
- Data scientist
- Business development manager
- Java developer
- Marketing manager
- Product marketing manager
- Mobile developer
- Develops engineer
- Communications manager
- Accounting manager
- Data engineer
- Scrum master
- Dentist
- Physician assistant
- Product manager
- Compliance manager
- Nursing manager
- Solutions architect
- QA manager
- Software development engineer
Percent of job seekers who apply for jobs where they do not meet the skill requirements:
As of December 2018, Glassdoor's jobs database had 1,512 openings in the cannabis industry, a 76 percent increase over the same period the previous year. Glassdoor Economic Research
In 2018, Glassdoor had 3,492 unique solar energy job openings, roughly the same number as January 2016. Glassdoor Economic Research
Here are the top three sectors carrying job gains in 2019:
Social Media
About a third of workers (35 percent) say they almost entirely learn about job openings on social platforms, and 41 percent of younger workers are most likely to search for jobs there. Top Echelon
In 2017, 58 percent of students were comfortable with an employer contacting them on social media, up from 38 percent in 2015. National Association of Colleges and Employers
The vast majority of organizations (84 percent) already recruit on social media while an additional 9 percent plan on starting. SHRM
Nearly half of employers (47 percent) say that if they can't find a candidate online, they are less likely to call them in for an interview. CareerBuilder
Nearly a quarter of employers (22 percent) who check out candidates on social media are looking for a reason to not hire the candidate. They're also checking for:
Employers have rejected candidates for the following reasons:
Employers have hired candidates for the following reasons:
As of September 2018, only 18 percent of adults in the United States had altered a social media account when they were applying for jobs. Morning Consult
Fifty-five percent of job seekers say they've decided against applying for a job after reading a negative review of the company. Career Arc
Job Satisfaction
Sixty-eight percent of workers say they're satisfied with their job (up from 61 percent in 2018). Jobvite
The vast majority of employees (80 percent) are looking for a new job or at least open to opportunities. Ajilon
Turnover hit 19.3 percent in 2018, up 3.5 percentage points since 2014. Salary.com
Here's what workers are satisfied about, ranked by the percent satisfied with each benefit/perk:
Here are the five most important drivers of job satisfaction:
- Potential for future growth
- Communication channels
- Recognition/acknowledgement
- Interest in work
- Performance review process
The number of highly engaged workers — those who are "involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace" — is at 34 percent, tied for the highest it's been since Gallup began collecting the figure in 2000. Gallup
Eighty percent of employees treated uncivilly spend a lot of work hours ruminating over the incident, while 48 percent intentionally reduce their work effort. Harvard Business Review
Workers in high-income families are more likely to enjoy their jobs:
- 59% Family income of $75,000 or more
- 45% $30,000 to $74,999
- 39% Less than $30,000
People in management positions are more satisfied with their job than people in occupations that have less agency:
- 62% Management
- 48% Manual or physical labor
Employees who rate their boss poorly are four times more likely to be looking for another job. TINYpulse
Here are the benefits employees don't have (but want):
Praise from their direct manager (67 percent), attention from leaders (63 percent) and opportunities to lead projects (62 percent) all outrank monetary incentives in increasing employee engagement. McKinsey
Fifty-two percent of part-time employees say their work is "just a job to get them by." Just 24 percent of full-time employees say the same. Pew Social Trends
Artificial Intelligence
About three-quarters of Americans (76 percent) are largely optimistic about the impact AI will have on people's lives and work. Northeastern University, Gallup
Americans are more worried about losing their job to AI (23 percent) than they are to immigrants (12 percent). Northeastern University, Gallup
Here are the highest-paying jobs that involve AI skills in the U.S.:
- Machine-learning engineer
- Data scientist
- Computer vision engineer
- Data warehouse architect
- Algorithm engineer
Recruiters rank AI as the No. 1 threat to the recruiting industry.
- 24% Artificial Intelligence
- 14.4% LinkedIn
- 6.6% Indeed
Here's a list of occupations ranked from the most to least susceptible to being replaced by automation:
High Risk 70%–100%:
- Production
- Food service
- Transportation
Medium Risk 30%–70%:
- Administrative
- Maintenance
- Construction
- Agriculture
- Personal care
- Protective
- Health support
- Sales
Low Risk 0%–30%:
- Health practitioner
- Legal
- Computer
- Science
- Management
- Education
- Social service
- Engineering
- Arts/entertainment
- Business
Fifty-one percent say they would need additional education to secure a new equivalent position should they lose their current job due to new technology. Notably, white-collar workers and blue-collar workers are both split on this question (52 percent and 50 percent, respectively). Northeastern University, Gallup
Women in the Workforce
Women have been the majority of college-educated adults for about four decades. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
In 2019, women became half of the U.S. college-educated workforce. Pew Research Center
Seventy-four percent of women in the early stages of their professional career aspire to reach executive leadership levels. Egon Zehnder and LinkedIn
Only 72 women are promoted or hired to manager for every 100 men. McKinsey & Company
Women, men and HR leaders agree that "Women are less likely to be promoted to first-level manager roles." McKinsey & Company
Forty-one percent of companies have policies targeting gender representation at senior levels of management while only 34 percent have policies for junior management. McKinsey & Company
Today, 44 percent of companies have three or more women in their C-suite, up from 29 percent five years ago. McKinsey & Company
When people see more women at the top, they are less concerned about gender inequality elsewhere. Harvard Business Review
In 2016, 25 percent of women reported being sexually coerced, and in 2018 that number had declined to 16 percent. Plos One
Donald Sjoerdsma
Career Advice Expert
Don is a freelance writer with more than five years' experience in digital media. His work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Oprah.com, Yahoo! and HuffPost. While at OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, his creative use of archival content...
More Articles by Donald Sjoerdsma