Marketing Hiring Data

This data was originally featured in the April 10th, 2024 newsletter found here: INBOX INSIGHTS, APRIL 10, 2024: 5P FRAMEWORK FLEXIBILITY, MARKETING HIRING DATA

In this week’s Data Diaries, let’s revisit employment and hiring data in marketing. One of my favorite data sources to understand what’s happening in marketing hiring is Indeed.com’s open positions data for 6 different countries, provided by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank.

Indeed.com launched this index in 2020 to show what was happening during the early months of the pandemic compared to February 2020, prior to world governments taking preventative actions. Since then, it has remained a valuable tool for understanding the job market across industries and locations.

Let’s take a look at what’s happening right now in marketing:

It has been quite a roller coaster for marketing over the last 4 years. What we see beginning in early 2023 for the USA, UK, and Canada is a decline of open positions in marketing below pre-pandemic levels – and that’s stayed persistently low. In 2024, it’s gotten worse for the UK.

Meanwhile, France seems to have gone hog wild in terms of hiring – since mid-2022, they’ve been hiring at a substantial rate and seem to be hiring on a sustained basis. Of all the markets, that one hasn’t cooled.

What do we make of this data, in the big picture? What we see is that marketing hiring is continuing to cool down in most places after the massive corrections in 2020 and 2021; however, since 2023, marketing’s been in a hiring slump for the USA, UK, and Canada. It’s not clear from the data why this is the case, and talking with colleagues in those locales has not been especially illuminating either, but it’s clear from the data’s trajectory that it hasn’t stabilized yet, and probably hasn’t hit bottom yet.

So what? What’s the takeaway for us?

If you’re a job seeker in the US, UK, or Canada, there’s a good chance it’s been very, very tough. Unfortunately, none of the countries in question show any kind of rebound in progress, so it’s going to remain tough probably through this quarter. It’s unclear whether or not this is a structural problem – meaning the underlying fundamentals have changed – or just a long dry spell. Either way, finding the next position is likely to take longer, so if you’re thinking about changing jobs, be sure you don’t leave your current job before you have the next one lined up.

If you’re a company in these markets, chances are you’ll have your pick of candidates. There’s even a good chance you can win a candidate that would cost more in different times.