By Katie Merritt, Senior Research and Data Manager, Robert Half
Job growth in the U.S. has been declining steadily since the hiring peaks seen in 2021 and 2022. But according to research conducted for Robert Half’s Demand for Skilled Talent report, over half of U.S. employers (57%) plan to expand their organization’s permanent headcount in the first half of 2024.
The Demand for Skilled Talent report highlights the latest data from Robert Half’s surveys of hiring managers and our analysis of more than 1 million job postings. It is intended to help hiring managers make informed staffing decisions.
This post takes a deeper dive into our report, providing an overview of key industries likely to be recruiting talent this year, and which jobs are likely to be in high demand. One significant takeaway from our research is that employers across industries are hiring for many types of tech and IT roles.
The government, manufacturing, healthcare and education services industries demonstrated strong annual job growth in 2023, and they are poised to continue offering consistent employment opportunities in 2024.
The business services and consumer products industries also saw annual job growth last year, contributing nearly 1 million new positions in 2023 combined (+966,200 jobs).
The professional services, finance and insurance, and technology industries each had declines in job growth in 2023. However, they still contributed over 745,000 jobs to the U.S. economy.
The business services industry had the most job openings in 2023 (722,500) compared with all other industries that Robert Half supports with our talent solutions. That figure is in line with growth observed in the previous year (+1%).
Thirty percent of job openings in business services were in administrative and customer support, 28% were in finance and accounting, and 19% were in technology.
Here’s a look at some of the top roles employers were recruiting for last year in these functional areas:
Administrative and customer support
Customer service specialist (+63,000 jobs)
Administrative assistant (+43,500 jobs)
Data entry specialist (+19,900 jobs)
Receptionist (+17,400 jobs)
Finance and accounting
Accounts payable specialist and clerk (+25,900 jobs)
Staff accountant (+18,300 jobs)
Bookkeeper (+11,100 jobs)
Tech and IT
Software engineer (+29,000 jobs)
Systems administrator (+10,300 jobs)
Network security engineer (+9,100 jobs)
Data scientist (+6,500 jobs)
DevOps engineer (+6,100 jobs)
Consumer products was the fourth-largest industry contributing to the job market in 2023, with 243,700 openings — a modest increase from 2022 (+3%).
Customer support roles made up 40% of the new professional openings within this industry, totaling over 98,700 jobs. Other prominent roles in the consumer products space included:
Receptionist (+8,400 jobs)Software engineer (+8,200 jobs)Administrative assistant (+7,100 jobs)Customer service manager (+4,500 jobs)
Universities and educational organizations recruited talent for 77,200 job openings in the United States in 2023. That marked a +12% increase from 2022, building on three consecutive quarters of year-on-year job opening growth from Q1 to Q3 2023.
These jobs were predominately in administrative and customer support (35%), followed by technology (24%), finance and accounting (15%), and marketing and creative (11%).
The most in-demand tech and IT jobs in the education services industry included:
Senior software engineer (+2,100 jobs)Systems engineer (+1,700 jobs)Software developer (+1,400 jobs)Systems administrator (+1,300 jobs)
The financial services industry recruited for 171,000 jobs in 2023, a 12% reduction from 2022. Despite fewer job opportunities in most functional areas, demand within marketing departments among companies in the financial sector did not decline. This industry also saw 800 more marketing-related jobs created in 2023 (+6%), compared with 2022.
The most in-demand finance and accounting jobs in the financial sector included:
Loan administrator (+4,500 jobs)
Financial analyst (+3,700 jobs)
Mortgage processor (+3,500 jobs)
Senior financial analyst (+3,100 jobs)
Many employers in the finance and insurance industry were also hiring tech and IT professionals, too. Roles in high demand included:
Software engineer (+19,400 jobs)
Data scientist (+2,700 jobs)
DevOps engineer (+2,400 jobs)
The government industry — or public sector — added 79,500 jobs in the U.S. in 2023, doubling the number seen in 2022 (+107%). The largest share of these jobs was in administrative and customer support (32%), followed by finance and accounting (19%), and human resources (18%).
Government entities were particularly focused on hiring for the following roles:
Administrative, customer support and human resources
Administrative assistant (+17,000 jobs)
Human resources specialist (+9,600 jobs)
Office specialist (+1,200 jobs)
Finance and accounting
Entry-level budget analyst (+2,600 jobs)
Accounting clerk (+1,900 jobs)
Many organizations in the government sector were also recruiting for marketing and creative and tech and IT positions, including:
Graphic designer (+1,500 jobs)
Systems analyst (+1,300 jobs)
Systems engineer (+1,000 jobs)
Among the professional roles that Robert Half places in the healthcare industry, there were 43,500 new job openings added in the U.S. in 2023. That is an 8% increase from 2022.
The bulk of these jobs were in administrative areas, including:
Medical receptionist (+18,200 jobs)
Administrative assistant (+16,000 jobs)
Customer service specialist (+12,300 jobs)
Front desk coordinator (+8,800 jobs)
Office manager (+8,400 jobs)
Software engineers were also in high demand in this industry, with healthcare employers adding 6,100 job openings in 2023.
Among the professional roles that Robert Half places in the manufacturing industry, there were over 250,000 new job openings added in the U.S. in 2023. That’s an 8% increase compared with 2022. These jobs were primarily in companies’ administrative and customer support (34%), technology (23%), and finance and accounting (15%) departments.
The following tech and IT roles were in particular demand in the manufacturing industry:
Software engineer (+21,000 jobs)
Systems engineer (+5,300 jobs)
Data scientist (+3,500 jobs)
Network security engineer (+2,900 jobs)
Systems administrator (+2,400 jobs)
The professional services industry was the second largest contributor to the number of job openings in 2023, totaling 459,600 jobs (-11% year over year).
Despite fewer new job openings in most functional areas, the demand for administrative and customer support jobs increased by 11% (+9,400 jobs) compared with 2022. Many professional services firms were expanding their IT talent benches, too.
Here are some of the jobs that professional services employers were particularly keen to staff in these business functions:
Administrative and customer support
Customer service specialist (+21,500 jobs)
Receptionist (+20,300 jobs)
Administrative assistant (+14,900 jobs)
Tech and IT
Software engineer (+43,000 jobs)
Systems engineer (+11,300 jobs)
Network security engineer (+10,100 jobs)
Data scientist (+8,100 jobs)
DevOps engineer (+8,000 jobs)
The technology industry recruited talent for 114,800 jobs in 2023, a 19% reduction from 2022. Despite 28,000 fewer openings, companies in the technology sector hired for more administrative and customer support (+21%), finance and accounting (+15%), and legal (+12%) roles than in the previous year.
Still, the technology industry continued to see high demand for various roles, including non-tech and IT positions, such as:
Software engineer (+17,600 jobs)
Customer service specialist (+5,700 jobs)
Network security engineer (+3,700 jobs)
Financial analyst (+3,400 jobs)
Marketing manager (+2,600 jobs)
While we know from our research for the Demand for Skilled Talent report that many employers in the U.S. have plans to hire, another notable trend may work against their recruitment goals: Only 36% of U.S. workers we surveyed said they plan to look for a new job during the first half of 2024.
That figure is 13 percentage points lower than our survey findings from Q2 2023 when 49% of workers said they were considering a job change.
For tips on how to overcome hiring challenges in the current labor market, plus more data on U.S. hiring and employment trends in 2024, read our full report.
Industry calculations are based on job postings provided by Textkernel. Positions are categorized into more than 450 job titles within Robert Half’s 2024 Salary Guide using a proprietary mapping methodology that employs state-of-the-art large language models. This dataset includes roles across the finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal, administrative and customer support, human resources, and healthcare support professions.
