Job postings, which had reached nearly double the number of available workers, tumbled in the first quarter. According to the job search website Indeed, which has more finely grained data, listed positions in marketing and human relations — those most correlated with a company’s growth plans — are down 43 percent and 45 percent over the year.
At the same time, a rebound in immigration eased labor shortages, especially in fields like leisure and hospitality, and health care, allowing those to continue to grow quickly. And declines in sectors that had surged during the pandemic, such as transportation and warehousing, may have propelled more people into other fields with lots of openings for jobs that don’t require college degrees, like hotels and restaurants.
The outflow from blue-chip internet companies like Google and Meta has been a particular boon for other industries that had been desperate for people with digital skills. United Airlines, which plans to hire 15,000 people this year, said this week that it had already picked up 120 people laid off by major tech employers.
That’s why the upheaval in Silicon Valley, kicked off by a swift increase in borrowing costs that dried up venture capital, largely hasn’t derailed those with the relative good fortune of losing jobs while the economy is still robust.
Katie Li, a 26-year-old software engineer in Palo Alto, Calif., was offered a job at a health technology company in late 2022. But after she had left her former job and before she could start the new one, the company rescinded the offer, saying that a few contracts had been paused and that it wasn’t sure it could sustain the position. In a panic, she started applying elsewhere, sending out 200 applications over a few months.
That effort yielded three new offers, and Ms. Li picked one that she thought had a compelling mission, serving people on Medicaid. She started in March, making 71 percent of her old salary — but like many of her friends who’ve lost positions lately, she is happy to be re-employed and have health insurance.
“Most people take slightly lower salaries, but compared to the normal person, they’re still superhigh,” Ms. Li said. “I think I was recognizing that other things are more important than career.”
