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DAVID BOYLE
·Posted in Introduce Yourself

Sales Manager

Hi all, new to this platform.
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Vanessa Nguyen
·Posted in Introduce Yourself

Hello!

Hi all - My name is Vanessa. I'm an HRBP at a Planet Fitness franchise known as National Fitness Partners. I have two Boxers. Lily (white and is deaf) and Leo (reverse brindle). Looking forward to connecting! 😀
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Mary Hernandez
·Posted in Introduce Yourself

Hello Everyone!

I am the Director of Talent Acquisition and Strategy at Autism Learning Partners. Our company provides in-home and clinic therapy to children diagnosed with autism. We've got 65 regions across 13 different states so we've got the fun job of finding those who may not have realized they are the perfect person to be a Behavior Technician! For funsies, I like to travel based on food suggestions. haha Feel free to add me on linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-hernandez-b98421106/
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CB
Chris Beaver
·Posted in Introduce Yourself

COO

I serve as the Chief Operating Officer of Hardin Advanced Dentistry, a large cosmetic dental practice in Ohio. In addition to overseeing daily operations, I am directly involved in recruiting, hiring, onboarding, performance management, and workforce planning across both clinical and administrative roles. Over the years, I have utilized Indeed extensively to recruit for a wide variety of positions, including dentists, hygienists, expanded function dental assistants, registered nurses, treatment coordinators, office managers, marketing professionals, and support staff. This experience has given me a unique perspective on both the strengths of the platform and the challenges employers face when identifying high-quality candidates efficiently.
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Chuck Solomon
Chuck Solomon
·Posted in Introduce Yourself

Hey there

I oversee employer brand and recruitment operations at LifeStance Health, an outpatient mental health care provider serving patients via telehealth or in one of our 500+ clinics throughout the US. As a side gig, I host The Candidate Experience Podcast. Connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chucksolomon1/
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Lisa Lamprecht
·Posted in Introduce Yourself

Director of Talent Acquistion

Hello! I am happy to be part of this group. I work for a staffing agency in Buffalo NY that is over 40 years old. We specialize in legal, engineering, accounting and clerical staffing. We utilize Indeed on a daily basis to help us source the most qualified Candidates. Also open to learning new things and helping to make our work more efficient!
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Latest Discussion Topics

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ED
Eric Davidson
·Posted in Report Issues & Bugs

Reward Points Not Awarded

Hi! I had a 1 hour survey session with Rob Maclennan to discuss smart sourcing but haven't received my points for that session.
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ED
Eric Davidson
·Posted in Report Issues & Bugs

Premium Campaign Invites BROKEN!!

This week I've been having an issue trying to use the Invite feature on Premium campaigns for my clients' accounts. I'm using the ai generated messages and am getting an error saying I can't send. And then my account gets locked down saying that it's under review. This started with one account on Monday and has spread to 2 others. I have brought the issue to my agency reps' attention, but figure I should mention it here as well. Overall, it's very frustrating as I'm well aware that Indeed is downgrading organic job posts and adding features like Premium campaigns to encourage more spending in exchange for better results. But right now, this Premium feature is NOT delivering a premium experience or premium results.
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ED
Eric Davidson
·Posted in Report Issues & Bugs

Report View on Campaign Dashboard

Recently, there's seems to have been a change on the campaign dashboard which sets the default report view to "Simple". I prefer seeing the "Advanced" view and have to reset to that every time I leave the main dashboard and then return to it. Very annoying. Would be much better if I could set an "always on" view for how I want to see report view.
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Laura Nagy
Laura Nagy
·Posted in Report Issues & Bugs

From Brian Holderread: Premium Ads Matched Candidates issue

When I click the Premium “Matched Candidates” tool to view matched candidates, it is looping and showing repeated names/profiles. I'm unable to see more than 24 unique names because they just keep repeating as I scroll to view more. Premium campaign claims there are 700+ matches to review though. Can anyone else test and verify this? Is it normal behavior? UPDATE: Was able to verify with someone else that this is an issue for people other than just me. It appears to be an issue with javascript ajax/lazy loader to update the page with more content as you scroll. It's just reloading with count from record 1 instead of keeping track of where it is. The other names I blurred also show repeatedly as well. The loop shows 24 unique names before they repeat again.
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Brian Holderread
Brian Holderread
·Posted in Report Issues & Bugs

Analytics improvements

On analytics, is it possible to have it isolate SmartSourced candidates? It can be by filter if need be. I was running premium campaigns as a test, but I was also using SmartSourcing candidates (I exhausted my premium invites). Now the analytics are polluted with the positive responses from SmartSourcing. Because of this, it makes it harder to determine the true value of premium unless I manually go through all the candidates and see if they are tagged as SmartSource invite. To be honest, I'm not even sure if that works. Candidates flagged for Matched Candidate invite show but I'm not seeing the SmartSource flag on ones I 100% know were acquired via SmartSourcing. Honestly, same goes for the Matched Candidates invite sourced folks. If I'm trying to measure effectiveness of premium, I want to be able to see in analytics what the true cost is of premium. Matched Candidates and SmartSourcing invites need to be viewed differently as this is not programmatic advertising and has additional costs (labor) that need to be considered when selecting advertising options.
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Devon Jennings
Devon Jennings
·Posted in Report Issues & Bugs

Jobs Constantly Disappearing

Is anyone else having issues with your entire job feed constantly and unexpectedly disappearing from Indeed? It's happened to us 6 times in the last month, sometimes for days at a time. We were told by our Support Rep to whitelist the IndeedJobBot, but even that has not resolved the issue. It seems each time the issue eventually does get resolved, but nobody can tell me what can be done to prevent it from happening again. During a period of urgent hiring for our business, these disruptions are extremely inconvenient. Just wondering if anyone else here has had similar issues? And what you did if you were able to eventually get them permanently resolved?
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Latest Articles

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The Great Mismatch: How a Shrinking Workforce, AI, and Labor Reallocation Will Define the Next 15 Years

By Felix Aidala & Laura Ullrich May 14, 2026 Key points: At current immigration levels, the US labor force is projected to shrink by roughly 1.2 million workers by 2040. The near-term decline is sharper: a drop of about 3.7%, or 5.9 million workers, by 2032 – driven in large part by aging and retiring workers, rather than AI-driven change. The labor market segments expected to see the biggest declines in employment are also the ones where AI tools are least likely to help compensate for labor shortages. AI’s labor-market impact is expected to be concentrated almost entirely in high-wage, white-collar sectors, where worker shortages will be less of a problem. The result will be a growing structural mismatch between where workers are and which jobs need them. Our estimates suggest this will increase the aggregate unemployment rate between 0.5 and 3.5 percentage points by 2040, with unemployment in certain sectors potentially rising by much more. The defining labor market challenge ahead is labor reallocation, not creation. Upskilling, credential reform, and better employee-job matching will be the primary levers available to better align the workforce. By 2040, there could be some 1.2 million fewer workers in the workforce, and as many as 5.6 million fewer jobs, according to a new projection from Hiring Lab. Unemployment could almost double, to near 8%. On their own, those challenges are daunting and represent a clear break from the past 250 years of US economic growth. But there is also opportunity. Our analysis shows there will be plenty of work to do and workers available to do it, but only if the market can find ways to effectively reallocate workers to where they are needed — and away from where they aren’t. Three structural forces are colliding in the US labor market: an aging workforce and accelerating retirements, a sharp slowdown in immigration, and the rise of AI. Each of these forces alone would represent a major change in the US job market. Taken together, they are expected to drive a growing mismatch between the jobs workers will have (and want), and the jobs the economy will need. Over the next 15 years, that mismatch will build quietly but significantly. This is not a cyclical story. Cyclical slowdowns are typically resolved through corresponding expansions. Structural mismatches — driven by demographic shifts, reallocation frictions, and technology-driven changes — do not. Addressing them will require deliberate action outside of the standard economic policy toolkit, and the window to act is shorter than it appears. The supply picture: Fewer workers, sooner than you think The headline labor force projection looks almost reassuringly modest. In 2025, there were approximately 159.1 million workers in the US labor force across the 10 employment supersectors tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Force Turnover Survey (JOLTS). By 2040, the size of this labor force is projected to shrink by roughly 0.7% from 2025 levels, a net decline of about 1.2 million workers. But the trajectory to get there is not linear, and the headline obscures a more significant near-term disruption. Line graph titled “Projected labor force by nativity” showing the expected path of the native-born and foreign-born labor force between now and 2040. While the foreign-born labor force is expected to increase, the native-born labor force is expected to decline. Between 2025 and 2032, the labor force is projected to decline by roughly 3.7%, or some 5.9 million workers, before partially recovering through the back half of the decade. By far the biggest driver of this front-loaded decline in the labor force is the impending retirements of older workers. The youngest Baby Boomers will turn 68 by 2032, at which point the entire generation will be old enough to qualify for full Social Security benefits — a big incentive to enter retirement, if they haven’t already. At the same time, as more people are expected to leave the market, fewer are expected to enter it. The persistently low fertility rates that have prevailed in recent years will reduce the number of young workers entering the labor market moving forward. Immigration has historically supplied a steady stream of workers to augment native-born entrants, especially in certain labor-intensive sectors such as construction and healthcare. But recently, it has slowed sharply. For this analysis, net migration was held at 410,000 a year, consistent with the reduced levels that prevailed in 2025. Under these conditions, the foreign-born labor force continues to grow, but at a pace far below historical norms. Bar graph titled “Labor supply: projected annual demographic flows” showing the level of entrants and retirements expected in the labor force between now and 2040. Due to sharply increasing retirement levels, the labor force is expected to decrease, on net, between now and 2033. The result is a labor market aging out at the top faster than it replenishes at the bottom, and doing so unevenly across sectors. In a handful of sectors that today employ a large share of older workers — including education & health, manufacturing, and government — retirement rates already (or soon will) exceed 3%, well above the rate at which new workers will flow in to replace them. There are several reasons to expect limited replacement rates in some of these industries, including specialized education requirements (healthcare) and generally lower pay (government, manufacturing). Many new labor market entrants, especially college graduates, are likely to continue seeking employment in fields that more closely match their fields of study and/or those they expect to pay more, typically white-collar fields. The result will be a relative abundance of available workers in some sectors, and accelerating shortages in others. Heatmap showing projected annual retirement rates between 2025 and 2040 for each of the 10 JOLTS supersectors. Some sectors have retirement rates in some years that exceed 3 percent between now and 2032, during the Baby Boomer retirement surge, with education and health experiencing the highest rates. AI won’t fill the gap — at least not where it matters most AI is already reshaping how work gets done, and its footprint in the labor market will grow considerably over the next 15 years. But its impact is likely to remain uneven: AI will be most transformative in industries that are not facing labor shortages. To start, AI transmits to the labor market through three channels: Channel Effect Productivity AI makes workers more productive. The same person gets more done. Replacement AI replaces specific tasks that humans previously performed. Destroying tasks and jobs. Expansion AI leads to new tasks where humans have a comparative advantage, creating new jobs and improving others. The balance between these channels will determine whether AI is a net positive or negative for employment in any given sector. That balance varies considerably across industries. For this analysis, we consider two scenarios: one in which AI is more likely to replace human labor, and one in which it is more likely to augment human labor rather than replace it. In the replacing scenario, we assume AI’s effect will be largely destructive, eliminating some tasks and destroying some jobs entirely. While AI is also likely to create new tasks and jobs in this scenario, these expansive impacts are secondary. Under the augmenting scenario, task/job destruction is much less frequent, and AI primarily takes on a labor-enhancing role, creating new tasks and jobs and making workers more productive. These scenarios can lead to quite different impacts on the labor market. In the replacement scenario, AI destroys jobs on net and exacerbates some of the demographic challenges described above. In the augmenting scenario, AI plays a limited role in mitigating (though not completely counteracting) some demographic challenges. In the replacement scenario, employment across the 10 JOLTS supersectors is expected to decline by 8.8 million by 2032, or 5.8%, from 151 million in 2025 to approximately 142.2 million. But even with this more destructive view of AI, 72.7% of the decline through 2032 (6.4 million jobs) is driven by demographic shifts (aging and immigration), while just 27.3% (2.4 million jobs) is driven by AI disruption. By 2040, the overall decline in employment under this scenario (compared to 2025) is expected to be 5.6 million jobs, 64.9% of which is due to demographics and 35.1% to AI. Even in the more optimistic augmenting scenario, demographics continue to drive overall employment down, even though AI leads to aggregate job gains. In this scenario, new job creation and enhanced productivity offset around 11% of the job losses caused by demographic shifts, and job losses total around 2 million by 2040. Two line graphs titled “Decomposing the projected decline in employment” showing the expected path employment under the replacing and augmenting AI scenarios. In both cases, demographic factors are the driving force in employment losses between now and 2040. The most significant declines are seen between now and 2032, with slight recoveries observed after 2032. But aggregate shares can be misleading. The sectors most exposed to AI disruption — including information, financial activities, and professional and business services — are the same sectors that tend to attract college graduates and offer above-average wages. These are not expected to be sectors facing acute worker shortages. If anything, they are already well-supplied with entrants eager to work in them. And in a replacing AI scenario, many of those would-be entrants into these fields will likely be left out in the cold. The combined unemployment rate across information, financial activities, and professional and business services rises from 4% in 2025 to 12% by 2032 in the replacing scenario (21.2% in information, 11.8% in financial activities, 10.7% in professional & business services). The sectors facing the most significant labor shortages – construction, healthcare, government – are precisely the ones where AI offers the least relief. AI has and will destroy some tasks and improve others in these sectors. But in general, healthcare roles require hands-on clinical judgment that AI can’t easily replace; construction requires physical presence and site-specific problem-solving that AI may lack the flexibility for; and government tends to lag other sectors in technological innovation. The model also shows essentially no AI impact in sectors including retail and leisure & hospitality, which tend to attract younger workers, have very few barriers and are minimally exposed to AI disruption. In the replacing scenario, unemployment in many of these sectors is expected to stay below 5% through 2032 (Construction: 4.2; Wholesale/Transportation/Utilities: 4.5%; Retail: 4.0%; Education and Health: 4.9%). This asymmetry has real consequences for workforce planning. If AI evolves in a more augmenting direction, it could create new roles in exposed white-collar sectors and absorb some of the anticipated oversupply of workers with those skill sets. But if it evolves in a more replacing direction, those same sectors will face a significant glut of structurally unemployed workers with few obvious alternative pathways. Either way, AI does almost nothing to address the shortage problem in the sectors where shortages are most acute. A series of 10 line graphs broadly titled “Projected employment by AI scenario” showing the expected path employment, depending on AI scenario, for each of the 10 JOLTS supersectors. The largest AI impacts are seen in the information, financial activities, and professional and business services sectors. The reallocation problem is harder than it looks Even in a world with no AI at all, our model shows that structural unemployment will rise. The reason is friction — the real and substantial difficulty of moving workers between industries, even when demand exists on the other side. It’s not so easy for a worker with tech skills, accustomed to a tech salary, to move from the oversupplied software industry to the undersupplied healthcare industry. For example, as it stands today, 68% of nurses entered the profession directly from the nursing sector, according to previous Hiring Lab research. And when nurses leave a role, 72% remain in nursing. Those figures are not simply a reflection of preference. They reflect the combination of required credentials, training time, and wage expectations that combine to create a high barrier to entry for the field, and effectively close the pipeline to workers from other fields, even motivated ones. Graphic showing the sectors individuals work in prior to, and after, working in nursing. The figure shows that 68% of those who work in nursing came from a previous job in nursing, much higher than many other fields. Similarly 72% of workers continue to work in nursing after leaving their nursing job. Our research explicitly incorporates these frictions, accounting for retraining costs, required credentials, wage differentials, and demographic factors that shape who works where. What it reveals is a consistent pattern across industries. Some sectors are relatively permeable. Professional and business services encompass a wide range of roles with varying educational requirements, and workers can enter from many backgrounds with modest retraining. Other sectors are not. Construction, education and health, and leisure and hospitality all feature high barriers, low wages, or both, limiting inflows even when job openings are strong and demand is clear. The aggregate effect is a rise in unemployment that is structural, not cyclical. Structural unemployment, driven by a mismatch between worker skills and available jobs rather than by insufficient overall demand, is slower to build and much slower to resolve. Workers in oversupplied sectors will eventually reskill, and wages and/or wage expectations will eventually adjust, but both will take time. In the interim, unemployment will climb. In the AI-replacing scenario, our model projects that overall unemployment could rise by approximately 3.5 percentage points by 2040, from the current 4.3% to something closer to 8%. Implications for policy and practice These projections are not fixed. They reflect the trajectory implied by current policy and current levels of labor market friction. Both are changeable. In our modeling framework, the difference between the baseline scenario (with realistic frictions) and a frictionless counterfactual is the structural unemployment that policy and employer action could, in principle, close. That gap is meaningful; it represents millions of workers who would be employed if reallocation were easier, and who might remain unemployed not because jobs do not exist, but because the pathways to reach them are too costly or too obscure. Two line graphs titled “Structural unemployment by AI scenario” showing structural unemployment under the replacing and augmenting AI scenarios. The shaded area represents workers who would be employed under the flexible adjustments but remain unemployed under the baseline. Reducing the cost of retraining, through subsidized programs, income support during transitions, or compressed credential pathways, could directly lower friction. Making credentials more portable across states and sectors could reduce information barriers. Wage supports in high-need, lower-wage sectors, including retail and healthcare, could shift the cost-benefit calculation for workers considering a transition. Employers have a role here that often goes underappreciated. Better labor market matching, using data to surface opportunities workers might not otherwise consider, can help address information frictions that are harder to measure but no less real. The construction firm that cannot fill a supervisor role because credential requirements are outdated is a friction problem. So is the experienced worker in a declining sector who never learned that an adjacent industry is actively hiring people with transferable skills. These are not problems that resolve themselves; they require deliberate attention to how jobs are described, how they are sourced, and who is considered for them. Looking ahead The US labor market is entering a period defined less by headline employment numbers and more by the underlying architecture of who works where and how easily they can move. Demographic decline, reduced immigration, and the uneven advance of AI will not produce a single dramatic crisis. They will produce something quieter and, in some ways, harder to address. The result is a slow-building mismatch that compounds over time and shows up not in mass unemployment but in persistent pockets of structural joblessness alongside unfilled vacancies in sectors that badly need workers. The next 15 years will test whether institutions, employers, and workers can adapt quickly enough to a labor market that does not need more people in aggregate, but rather needs different people in different places. The policy and employer interventions that can make a real difference are not glamorous. They involve retraining, credential reform, better job matching, and sustained attention to the sectors with the most severe shortages. But the payoff, in reduced structural unemployment and a more functional labor market, is significant. There will be plenty of work to do going forward, and enough people to do it. The defining labor market challenge ahead will be to create new ways of matching the work that needs doing with the people who need to do it. ……………….. Methodology This analysis draws on modeling of the 10 JOLTS supersectors, starting from a 2025 labor force of 159.11 million and employment of 151.84 million (implying a 4.5% unemployment rate). Farm workers and the self-employed are excluded due to data limitations. Net immigration is held at 2025 levels throughout, and no policy changes are assumed to Social Security, Medicare, TANF, or other programs empirically shown to affect employment decisions. The size of the working-age population is estimated using native birth rates obtained from the CDC and death rates from the Social Security Administration’s 2024 cohort life tables. Forward projections assume no changes to labor force participation rates for workers aged 64 and below. For workers aged 65-75, we assume a wave of retirements over 2026-2032 that gradually normalizes as baby boomers age out of the workforce. Labor market dynamics are modeled using a search-and-matching framework, À la Diamond, Mortensen, and Pissarides’ canonical setup. We adjust the standard model to include cross-industry flows, new labor market entrants from immigration and degree completions, endogenous education decisions, gender specific occupational preferences, and AI integration. The model’s fixed parameter values are calibrated using 2024-2025 data. We would love to hear your thoughts on this article! What points resonated the most? Is this what you are hearing in your respective industries? I know many of you like to share articles we share, so here is the official link on Indeed's website.
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Solving the 7 disconnects between job seekers and employers

Although employers and job seekers agree that hiring seems to be getting harder, they can’t seem to align on why that’s the case. Employers struggle to find qualified applicants while job seekers think they’re competing against too many qualified candidates. What’s really going on? Our latest research report, Indeed Smarter Hiring Insights: Solving the 7 Disconnects That Make Hiring Harder, explores the common reasons behind missed connections between employers and job seekers—and offers strategies for bridging the gaps. Download the PDF below to understand: The skills employers are looking for vs. what job seekers think they want Which elements of a job offer each group thinks is most attractive How the two groups differ in their views on AI usage and upskilling What employers can do to solve the disconnects with job seekers We are also curious to hear what your thoughts are...is hiring getting harder in your word, why or why not?
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Global Labor Market and Workforce Trends (February 2026)

Labor markets worldwide are caught between the promise of an AI-driven, transformative future and the realities of an uncertain, stagnant present. Labor demand has cooled, and risks stalling without renewed dynamism. Structural pressures — aging populations, declining participation, and limited mobility — are worsening. AI offers a chance to relieve these pressures and amplify what workers can do, but its impact so far has been modest and uneven. Indeed Hiring Lab research shows that AI’s full effect is still emerging. Adoption is advancing quickly in large tech and professional services firms, but much more slowly across the broader economy. Virtually every job will eventually be touched by AI to some degree, but the current tools are better at enhancing existing skills and reshaping tasks rather than entirely reinventing work itself. Meanwhile, the global economy feels unsteady. Inflation remains high in many markets, shifting trade policies are rewiring supply chains, and migration is tightening despite employers’ hiring challenges. Affordability is deteriorating and access to essential services is under strain. Even in an AI-enabled future, aging populations will require more hands-on labor – but today, critical industries such as construction and care face severe worker shortages. AI’s potential is immense — but potential is not progress. Realizing it will require balancing innovation with present needs, keeping people at the center of productivity, and ensuring that technological gains translate into shared opportunity across borders. In times of uncertainty, data is a compass. Indeed’s real-time insights from employers and job seekers reveal where opportunities are growing, where skills are scarce, and where mismatches could impede recovery. At the Hiring Lab, it always starts with the data. It lets us look around corners and interpret the world we live in. It is our mission to share these insights and help others make better decisions with data. Please read the full article here. What do you think? Do you share these views or not?
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State of Work (not a published article) - Horizons into the unknown

Indeed conducted a study that hasn’t been published yet and surveyed the groups below: 6,837 x Job seekers: people in full or part-time employment or looking for work. 2,481 x Employers: those with senior management responsibility in their organization. Respondents are broadly demographically representative of their local market. Here is what we found: 1 - Skill set needs Employers feel most confident about a candidate when they have a balance of experience, skills and potential. Experience in a similar industry/role and transferable skills are also key. Focusing on a balance of skill, experience and adaptability gives employers confidence in the hiring process. Job seekers would feel most confident in applying for a role if they had experience in a similar industry/role and this is the case in most countries. Having an equal balance of experience, skills and potential and meeting skills requirements are also key. Job seekers gain confidence from having a balance of skill and potential, experience and meetings skills requirements. At a global level, employers believe soft skills to be the most important when evaluating an applicant but other elements such as workforce and leadership skills are also important. Employers believe soft skills are important because they can have a positive impact on culture, while workforce/leadership skills and industry skills drive business success. Job seekers are aligned with employers in thinking that soft skills are the most important. This is closely followed by industry-specific skills. Job seekers believe that both soft and workforce skills are crucial for communication. Workforce and leadership skills are seen as the most critical skills gap in organisations by employers. Technical and soft skills are also a big gap. In almost all countries surveyed, on-the-job training is the way in which employers are most commonly currently addressing the skills gap. In line with employers, job seekers are most likely to be acquiring new skills through on-the-job training. According to employers, the biggest challenge preventing employees from acquiring new skills is a lack of time and this is the case in almost all countries. Cost and a lack of interest are also factors. Job seekers are aligned with employers in considering time constraints to be the biggest challenge preventing them from acquiring new skills and this is a consistent global story. Employers think that the responsibility for reskilling/upskilling employees is fairly evenly shared between top management, line managers and employees themselves. Job seekers believe that they and their line managers are responsible for them reskilling/upskilling. The vast majority of employers surveyed anticipate employees’ skills needing to change in the next 3-5 years. Anticipation is highest in France and lowest in the Netherlands. Job seekers anticipate their skills needing to change in the next 3-5 years (though not to quite the same extent as employers). Anticipation is highest in India and lowest in the Netherlands. Employers in all countries are most likely to see AI and automation as the primary driver for employee skill sets changing in the next 3-5 years. Job seekers see AI and automation as a key driver for changing skills but also consider an interest in lifelong learning to be an important factor. 2 - Hiring is slow Employers see a lack of applicants with required skills and the high expectations of candidates as being their organization’s biggest challenge in finding and attracting quality candidates. Job seekers consider the increased competition for roles to be the biggest challenge in their job searches. Other factors such as complicated, unclear application processes and job descriptions not providing enough details are also cited. At a global level, the average time taken from job posting to offer acceptance is under 8 weeks. Job seekers are aligned with employers and are generally finding that the time taken to find a job from applying to receiving an offer is under 8 weeks. A plurality of employers believe that 2-4 weeks is the maximum amount of time that is accepted for a candidate to wait for a hiring decision before they look elsewhere. Job seekers are aligned with employers in thinking that 2-4 weeks is the maximum amount of time that is accepted for a candidate to wait for a hiring decision before they look elsewhere. At a global level, the majority of employers surveyed rate their company’s hiring process as being about the same speed as a year ago. A plurality of job seekers believe the speed of the hiring process to be the same as a year ago, but a sizable proportion do not hold a view (likely due to not applying for a job in this time). In all countries, employers believe that finding qualified candidates matching the job requirements to be the step of the hiring process that takes the longest at their organization. Employers believe that job seekers should be prepared, have the right skills and be honest about their ability. Reducing stages, providing more job information and being transparent are what job seekers believe employers can do to speed up the hiring process. A streamlined interview process and pre-assessments are the elements that employers are most likely to have implemented to help improve speed. The process changes implemented by employers that have ‘absolutely’ helped to reduce the timeframe vary by country, with visa processing initiatives the most helpful at a global level. Employers see the increased workload for existing employees as being the biggest downside at their company when a slow hiring process delays bringing new employees on board. A slow hiring process has led to job seekers developing a negative view of a company, decreased personal morale, taking a job at a different company and delaying personal decisions. 3 - The role of technology and AI Organizations are using AI in the hiring process to summarize experience or candidate fit, match candidates to jobs and screen candidates. A fifth are not using any tools. Job seekers are most likely to be using AI to get a job faster by writing a resume, preparing for an interview or writing/editing a cover letter. Two-fifths are not using any tools. According to employers, AI has been most effective in summarizing experience or candidate fit and automating scheduling and communication. For job seekers, AI has been most effective for writing or editing a cover letter or resume and researching a company. Employers are most likely to consider AI to be acceptable when preparing for interviews. Job seekers are most likely to consider AI to be acceptably used by employers when writing job descriptions. Just under a fifth do not think that employers should use AI in the hiring process. Employers’ top hopes for AI systems in helping with hiring candidates include screening, enhancing the candidate experience and reducing bias. Job seekers hope that AI systems can help with role matching, quick feedback and eliminating bias. Employers are most concerned that AI could lead to good candidates being missed, biases appearing and soft skills not being accounted for. When thinking about AI in the hiring process, job seekers are most concerned about losing the human touch, bias appearing and only hard skills being factored in. 4 – Are people thriving? Employers are fairly evenly split on which element of their job offer is most attractive to candidates. Work-life balance/flexibility or career growth rank first in all countries. Work-life balance/flexibility and base salary are most important to job seekers when choosing between job offers. Employers generally think that their company supports helping employees to reach their maximum potential. Endorsement is highest in Australia and India. Job seekers generally place significance on a company’s reputation of helping employees reach their maximum potential. Endorsement is highest in India and Germany. According to employers, burnout is the most common sign that suggests the wellbeing of their workforce is declining. An increase in remuneration is the initiative that employers believe is the most important in attracting and retaining talent, closely followed by professional growth opportunities and flexible work arrangements. Increase in pay, professional growth opportunities and flexible work are the wellbeing initiatives that employers would most like to see implemented/improved in their organization. Employee feedback surveys are the main mechanism that employers use to measure the success of their wellbeing initiatives. Employee feedback surveys are the main mechanism that employers use to measure the success of their wellbeing initiatives. The biggest challenge facing companies in implementing wellbeing practices effectively is budget constraints, closely followed by a lack of interest/engagement from employees. Most employers believe that a majority of their employees are taking advantage of their wellbeing initiatives. Constructive feedback is the way in which employers are most likely to be addressing employees who are not thriving at work. What are you seeing??
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Indeed’s 2026 US Jobs & Hiring Trends Report: How to Find Stability in Uncertainty Big changes to the broad economic picture are unlikely — but that doesn’t mean things won’t change.

Key takeaways: A series of new economic forecasts from Indeed Hiring Lab suggest that in 2026, job openings are poised to stabilize, but may not grow much; unemployment is likely to rise, but not alarmingly so; and GDP growth looks to remain positive, but somewhat anemic. Sustaining current GDP growth in 2026 may depend on the ability of high-income households to continue to spend at elevated levels. If immigration policy continues on its current path, we can expect labor supply to remain tight in a variety of fields, including construction, hospitality, engineering, and medicine. If hiring remains strong in healthcare, and job creation continues in line with rates observed in recent years, job openings could remain relatively high and unemployment could remain low, especially if conditions improve in other sectors. If the mismatch in skills and experience between the jobs that are available and the workers that are available to fill them persists, hiring is likely to remain stagnant, and unemployment duration is likely to remain long. Federal worker layoffs and funding cuts have yet to meaningfully move the unemployment rate or GDP, but the recent weakening of the labor market and rising “low-hire” environment suggest that pressures are growing. Regional dynamics matter: In 2026, where you live and what you do will matter for your professional prospects at least as much as movements in top-line national trends. Economic and labor market uncertainty is everywhere. The longest federal government shutdown in history has only recently ended, tariff policy remains unsettled, immigration continues to decline, monetary policy is in flux, and the labor market feels distressingly stuck in place. It’s no surprise that the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index hit record levels in 2025. Making matters worse, missing and/or delayed government data releases make assessing true economic conditions more difficult. Difficult, but not impossible. Indeed’s world-class and near-real-time data offers a unique view of the market unavailable anywhere else. Hiring Lab economists have parsed that data extensively for indications of what conditions may look like in 2026 if and when the fog of uncertainty lifts. New this year, Indeed’s proprietary data was combined with dozens of professional forecasts and a deep understanding of historical economic relationships to estimate where GDP growth, the unemployment rate, and job openings are expected to stand at the end of 2026. The data suggest that job openings are poised to stabilize, but may not grow much; the unemployment rate is likely to rise, but not alarmingly so; and GDP growth looks to remain positive, but somewhat anemic. In short, don’t expect much movement one way or another. But there are a variety of factors that will drive the ultimate numbers up or down — including the strength of consumer spending, changes to immigration policy, how concentrated growth is, ongoing changes to federal spending, and regional strengths and weaknesses. Nobody knows exactly how these trends will evolve over the coming year, but we can make some educated assumptions based on what we know today. This report establishes our consensus, upside, and downside scenario forecasts for 2026 and examines the major trends we tracked throughout 2025, and how they’re likely to shape the year ahead. Scenario planning: How unemployment, labor demand & economic growth could unfold in 2026 Labor demand slowed, but GDP growth was solid. Can it stay that way? Global talent in flux: What 2025’s immigration shifts could mean for hiring in 2026 Non-healthcare sectors are sick. What happens if the illness spreads? Signs of mismatch: When available jobs don’t match available skills Funding freeze, hiring squeeze: The federal factor in 2026 Location, location, location: The regional divide comes into focus Conclusion: Why 2026 will be different, but not unrecognizable Scenario planning: How unemployment, labor demand & economic growth could unfold in 2026 Hiring Lab constructed consensus, upside, and downside scenarios that estimate the unemployment rate and the level of job openings at the end of 2026. These scenarios were informed by Wolters Kluwer’s Blue Chip 2026 GDP growth forecasts, an aggregation of forecasts from economists and financial professionals. The Blue Chip Consensus Scenario is derived from Blue Chip’s November 2025 consensus forecast for 2026 real GDP growth, which averaged 45 economist forecasts. For the Upside Scenario and Downside Scenarios, we use the average of the top ten and bottom ten forecasts for real GDP growth, respectively. It is important to note that these do not represent the best and worst case scenarios for the economy; instead, they are illustrative of slightly more positive and negative outlooks than the consensus average. From these GDP growth forecasts, we then used known historical relationships between economic growth and labor market performance to estimate both the unemployment rate and the number of job postings at year-end 2026. Further details can be found in the methodology section at the end of this report. The Blue Chip consensus forecast for real GDP annual growth in 2026 is currently 1.8%, with the top 10 and bottom 10 forecasts averaging 2.5% and 0.9% growth, respectively. This then translates into estimated unemployment rates ranging from 4.1% to 4.8%, and job postings levels ranging from 6.8 million to 7.4 million at the end of next year. Interestingly, both the current unemployment rate and level of job postings are within this range and close to the consensus scenario. This indicates that, on average, big economic swings are not anticipated by the consensus in 2026. The consensus scenario would indicate that the current “low-hire, low-fire” labor market, in which employers are unsettled enough about the economic outlook to punt hiring decisions but not concerned enough to make significant layoffs, is likely to continue. The upside scenario would indicate a labor market taking a turn for the better, most likely precipitated by a clearing of uncertainty around immigration, tariff and monetary policy, a rebound in consumer sentiment, and further reductions in inflation. This scenario would likely accompany a pickup in the hires and quits rate as firms increase hiring and more workers take advantage of rising opportunities in the labor market to switch roles. If uncertainty persists and consumer sentiment remains weak, then the downside scenario is more likely. Employers still looking to hire would very likely see a substantial increase in candidate volume due to the decline in job postings. This could be mildly tempered by a drop in the labor force participation rate as workers fall out of a discouraging labor market. Some industries could be hit especially hard. Each of the following dynamics is likely to influence economic conditions to some degree, and each will in turn be shaped by how the broader labor market evolves. How these trends unfold — whether they hold steady, improve, or deteriorate — will help determine which scenario best describes the economy at the end of 2026. Labor demand slowed, but GDP growth was solid. Can it stay that way? Overall hiring demand and the subsequent pace of hiring cooled consistently throughout 2025, leading to slower wage growth, declining labor force participation, and longer job searches for unemployed workers. Indeed’s Job Postings Index (JPI) is a real-time measure of employer demand based on the level of job postings on Indeed at any given time. Readings above 100 indicate that demand is higher than it was prior to the pandemic, and readings below 100 indicate that demand is lower than pre-pandemic levels. On New Year’s Day 2025, JPI was more than 10% higher than pre-pandemic norms (an index reading of 111.7). By the end of October, it had fallen to less than 2% above pre-pandemic levels (an index reading of 101.7). This closely follows the trends reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) JOLTS report. While demand has fallen from a year ago in virtually every professional sector tracked by Indeed, the cooling job market has been uneven, with demand in some sectors falling much more significantly than others. Job seekers looking for roles in fields with relatively high JPI levels, including civil engineering (154.0) and personal care and home health (148.4), will have a far different experience than those seeking work in harder-hit sectors, including media & communications (64.1) and scientific research & development (70.8). But while the labor market continued to weaken throughout 2025, GDP growth has been surprisingly steady, defying expectations from earlier this year. Between March and April — when proposed economic changes first began to come into clearer view, including massive new tariffs and sweeping immigration and industrial policy changes — consensus Blue Chip 2025 forecasts for real, year-end GDP growth fell from 2.0% to 1.4%. On average, the lowest 10 predictions at the time called for annual GDP growth by year’s end of just 0.6%. But in the months that followed, many of the largest announced and proposed changes from the new administration were challenged, reduced, or even eliminated, and GDP remained more resilient than expected. In November, the same forecasts called for year-end GDP growth of 1.9% on average, with the bottom 10 forecasters expecting annual growth to end 2025 at 1.7%, both well above their April expectations. Continued strength in consumer spending, which makes up roughly 68% of GDP, is a big reason for the sustained strength in GDP growth this year. Yet a growing, and disproportionate, share of consumer spending is coming from top income earners. A recent study from the Bank of America Institute indicated that spending by high-income earners grew 2.6% year-over-year in September. Over the same period, spending by middle- and low-income earners grew just 1.6% and 0.6%, respectively. The gap between spending levels of households of different income levels grew noticeably in 2025 and is much wider than has been observed in the post-COVID era. For many families, wage and income growth play a significant role in their ability to increase spending. Wage growth as measured by the Indeed Wage Tracker, which tracks changes in advertised salaries in job postings, also slowed in 2025, to 2.5% year-over-year by September, down from 3.4% at the start of the year. This slowdown has been fairly widespread, with similar annual growth in advertised wages observed for high-, medium-, and low-paying roles. Annual wage growth of 2.5% is not wildly out of line with historic norms, so this broad slowdown is not overly concerning in a vacuum. The challenge today is that the annual pace of inflation is now running hotter than wage growth, which has serious implications for consumers’ purchasing power, especially for lower-income workers with less of a savings buffer. With overall layoffs and the unemployment rate both still relatively low, this underlying weakness in consumption has not yet become a drag on GDP growth. But a deteriorating labor market in line with our adverse scenario may yet apply some pressure. If more people lose their jobs, or if it takes people significantly longer to find a job, consumption — and GDP with it — may take a hit. Looking ahead at 2026: Sustaining the currently decent level of GDP growth in 2026 may very well depend on the ability of high-income households to continue to spend at elevated levels. It is possible, but less likely, that lower and middle-income households are able to increase their consumption more than expected. Growth in asset values, in everything from stocks to gold to cryptocurrency, will help determine how much spending can grow — especially in an environment where inflation remains elevated and the labor market remains soft. Global talent in flux: What 2025’s immigration shifts could mean for hiring in 2026 This year has brought major shifts in immigration policy and enforcement. While several measures have already disrupted foreign talent flows, we have yet to see the full impact of recently announced policies, many of which have the potential to influence labor market conditions and recruitment strategies. Over the past year, there has been a rise in detentions and deportations of unauthorized migrants, and several programs that offered temporary work authorizations for migrants from specific countries were terminated. More than a million people lost their legal status this year, and a large proportion also had their work permits revoked. While many of these individuals have not been deported, their ability to work legally in the US has been impacted significantly, and a fear of further enforcement may also be influencing these workers’ employment choices. Asylum restrictions and more stringent border control measures also served to drive down the number of migrants entering the country. Taken together, these developments will all have a direct impact on sectors that have traditionally been heavily reliant on migrant labor, including agriculture, construction, cleaning, and sanitation. While greater immigration enforcement may have most notably impacted hourly workers, new policies will also affect professional workers. In September, the administration announced a one-time, $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa beneficiaries, the most common visa pathway for high-skilled immigrants and international students, especially in STEM fields. While the exact policy details remain uncertain, the changes are likely to significantly disrupt the pool of highly trained professional talent in fields including tech, engineering, and medicine. The full extent of the impact will not be observed until March 2026, when the FY2026 application period ends. There has also been a drastic drop in the number of international students enrolled in US colleges and universities. A disproportionate number of international students come to the US to attain advanced degrees in STEM fields and subsequently join the workforce after their graduation. The recent decline in international enrollment signals another potential future shortfall in highly skilled talent for key industries. Indeed data reflects some of the impacts of these changes to immigration policy. The share of job postings that explicitly offer visa sponsorship remains elevated at almost three times the pre-pandemic share, with most of them coming from medical fields. This highlights both the ongoing labor shortages in the sector and the recognition and willingness of employers to turn to migrants to help fill them. But even as employers extend a welcome, foreign job seekers’ interest in jobs in the United States has dropped, reaching an almost five-year low of 1.45% in June 2025. While the share has rebounded slightly since then, it remains well below the recent peak of 2.38% in August 2023. This puts US employers in an interesting situation. Despite increasingly restrictive immigration policies proposed by the administration, US employers are still willing to sponsor visas to fill critical shortages. However, the uncertainty and fear around immigration enforcement are likely dampening foreign job seekers’ interest in US-based jobs. Going into 2026, the interplay between employer demands for global talent and tighter legal pathways for immigrants will shape the US hiring landscape, especially in fields with heavy percentages of foreign workers. Looking ahead at 2026: If immigration policy continues on its current path, we can expect labor supply to remain tight in a variety of fields, including construction, hospitality, engineering, and medicine. In the short term, a smaller migrant workforce could push the unemployment rate down, even as employers continue to have serious issues filling open roles. In the longer run, the trend could hamper employers’ ability to maintain desired production and output levels. Loosening even some immigration restrictions could contribute to employers feeling more confident in their ability to hire and expand, potentially pushing job openings up in line with the more upside economic scenario outlined above. But further restrictions may lead to further contractions in overall job openings, more in line with the downside case. Non-healthcare sectors are sick. What happens if the illness spreads? Job growth in 2025 has been heavily concentrated in healthcare — a sector largely insulated from broader economic cycles and clearly impacted by well-documented demographic shifts. As of August, healthcare accounted for just 11.4% of total US nonfarm employment, but represented 47.5% of all job growth recorded so far in 2025. As a result, discussions of the labor market must increasingly separate healthcare employment from the rest of the economy. While headline job postings were 1.7% above pre-pandemic levels at the end of October, healthcare postings ended the month 22.6% above pre-pandemic levels. The healthcare, tech, and retail & hospitality sectors all experienced a strong post-pandemic boom in demand, but demand has since fallen off more quickly outside of healthcare. Postings in retail and hospitality are currently 7.4% below pre-pandemic levels, while tech job postings are almost a third lower than they were in early 2020. Still, despite its recent strength, healthcare has not been immune to the overall weakening in demand that has characterized the market over the past year. Demand has declined year-over-year in virtually every sector tracked by Indeed, with 13 sectors falling by more than 10%. In today’s “low-fire, low-hire” environment, those trying to enter the labor market in fields outside of healthcare (and a handful of other relatively high-demand fields, including civil engineering and construction) are bearing the heaviest burden. Young workers, in particular, are struggling — not because entry-level jobs have disappeared, but because employers are simply not expanding their workforce at the moment. While the number of junior positions has declined in absolute terms, these roles are not vanishing faster than job postings overall. In fact, in some cases, entry-level roles have remained steady — or even increased — as a share of total postings, despite the broader market slowdown. Put differently, the challenge for new graduates isn’t that junior roles are being uniquely squeezed out, but that the entire job market is contracting, leaving fewer opportunities across the board. This dynamic is reflected in the contrast between a low overall unemployment rate (but a decline in job postings) and monthly payroll employment growth. For those already employed, things may feel steady enough. But for those trying to break in — especially outside of the handful of better-performing sectors like healthcare — the landscape looks barren. The 2025 labor market is best described as frozen, with the first signs of frostbite showing through. Employers and employees alike have so far weathered the freeze by battening down the hatches, with workers reluctant to leave their current jobs and businesses content to hang on to the workers they have without embarking on either hiring or firing sprees. Looking ahead to 2026, the question won’t be whether the market thaws — it will be whether it cracks. Looking ahead at 2026: If layoffs begin to meaningfully increase next year, the freeze could quickly turn into a storm. History tells us that when layoffs increase considerably, higher unemployment rates are quick to follow. If hiring remains strong in healthcare, and job creation continues in line with rates observed in recent years, job openings could remain relatively high and unemployment could remain low, especially if conditions improve in other sectors. In this case, we could end up in the consensus, or even upside, scenario. Recent BLS data shows healthcare employment slowing, and job postings have declined year-over-year in each of the healthcare-related sectors tracked by Indeed. Continued erosion of labor conditions in healthcare, without serious improvements in other sectors, could move us toward the downside scenario. Signs of mismatch: When available jobs don’t match available skills As job postings have decreased, and the unemployment rate has increased, there has also been a significant shift in the average number of applications started per job posting, suggesting a mismatch between labor supply and demand. Indeed data indicate that while the number of applicants per job has declined by 75% or more in some sectors, others are experiencing application growth per job of more than 50%. There are still a relatively high number of job postings in medical fields that require significant education, including for veterinarians and surgeons, but applications for roles in these fields are lower than they were two years ago. This suggests that while demand for talent remains high, the supply of interested candidates is not expanding at the same pace. At the same time, the average number of applications per job has risen sharply for several blue-collar and service categories, including food prep and sanitation, a likely reflection of the ongoing realignment of the US labor market. As layoffs and uncertainty impact higher-skill occupations, many job seekers are likely to shift their focus to roles that offer steadier hiring and lower entry barriers. Quits rates for the healthcare and social assistance sector — including roles with both higher and lower applicant interest — are also slightly higher than the national average, adding to the varying retention challenges faced by different occupations within the sector. The surge in interest for sectors including food service, cleaning, driving, and personal care may indicate workers are pursuing positions that remain in demand — as indicated by higher JPIs — despite broader economic changes. One exception is in the data & analytics sector, which had the lowest sectoral JPI of all sectors tracked as of the end of October (60.4), but a rising number of applications per job. This could be driven by a mismatch between demand and supply for these roles, caused by continued growth in new analytics workers and a rise in laid-off analytics workers, both of which are expanding the pool of candidates competing for a still-limited number of jobs. Changes in the time it takes for unemployed workers in various fields to find a new role can also help illustrate some potential misalignment between available jobs and available talent. Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicate that some of the largest increases in average unemployment duration since 2023 have been in white-collar fields, particularly financial activities, information, and professional and business services. The jump was especially dramatic in the financial activities sector, where unemployed workers spent about 20 more weeks searching for a job in 2025 than they did in 2023, the largest jump of any sector. Intriguingly, the sector also saw a much lower quits rate of 1.2% in the BLS data, as opposed to the country average of 1.9% in August 2025. Evidently, workers are reluctant to quit their current roles in the sector, as finding new roles is becoming increasingly challenging. The fact that the sectors with the biggest increases in unemployment duration are also seeing the sharpest declines in applicants per job suggests that hiring in these fields has become significantly more selective. Even with fewer applicants competing for each open role, many job seekers are spending longer periods searching for a suitable match, possibly reflecting a growing mismatch between candidate backgrounds and employer requirements in these traditionally high-skilled sectors. It should also be noted that unemployment duration has actually fallen in three sectors over the past two years: transportation and utilities, leisure and hospitality, and public administration. This may signal better matching between workers and employers, or it may simply reflect the lower skill requirements common in these fields. Looking ahead at 2026: If job openings for highly skilled workers begin to grow meaningfully enough to bring more of these unemployed workers back into the job market more quickly, the labor market may move more in the direction of our upside scenario. But if the mismatch in skills and experience between the jobs that are available and the workers that are available to fill them persists, hiring is likely to remain stagnant and unemployment duration is likely to remain long, in line with the consensus or downside scenarios. Funding freeze, hiring squeeze: The federal factor in 2026 Public sector employment sharply reversed itself in 2025, shedding 24,000 jobs between January and August. This represents a major departure from the one million net new jobs added in the sector in 2023 and 2024 (mostly in local government and education roles). Local government employment has increased by 104,000 jobs this year, but it hasn’t been enough to overcome sizable losses in federal and state government jobs, which have decreased by 97,000 and 31,000, respectively. These losses are likely to grow as more data are released post-shutdown. Tens of thousands of federal workers reportedly accepted deferred resignations early this year, with many taking effect after August and not yet fully reflected in the available official data. And while the November agreement to reopen the government reinstated federal workers furloughed during the shutdown, additional reductions in force going forward cannot be ruled out, especially with another potential funding dispute looming in early 2026. Amidst all these layoffs and uncertainty, federal workers have responded by seeking new employment opportunities. Job applications from federal workers surged early in the year, especially from workers in agencies then under review by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The early-year surge slowed somewhat in the spring, but applications began trending upward again in early July and remain almost 150% above their year-ago level by the end of October. The shutdown had a slight impact on the job search behavior of federal workers, with applications rising 8.5% month-over-month in October 2025. Cuts and freezes in government spending have also directly affected hiring in certain non-government sectors, especially scientific research & development jobs. Job postings in this sector have slowed more quickly than overall job opportunities in recent years, but cuts to government research spending widened the gap further beginning in early 2025. On January 1, overall postings on Indeed were about 12% above their pre-pandemic levels, while scientific research and development jobs were 11% below. By the end of October, overall postings were 1.7% above early 2020 levels, but harder-hit scientific research & development sat 29% below their pre-pandemic baseline. Federal funding reductions have also had a ripple effect on companies that rely heavily on government contracts. From January 1 to mid-July, hiring among the 25 employers with the most dollars received from government contracts pulled back by 23%, while the overall JPI decreased by 4.5%. Encouragingly, there have been signs of a rebound in federal contractor employment since mid-July, but there are still about 15% fewer opportunities with those companies now than there were when the year kicked off. Employment with top contracting companies and the federal government remains relatively small, accounting for less than 5% of all jobs. But the reach of these jobs extends into many corners of the economy, and the spending, research, and social programs they help support have a wide impact on broader economic health and household stability. For that reason, government employment and spending will be key to watch for the health of the labor market and economy in 2026 and beyond. Looking ahead at 2026: Federal worker layoffs and funding cuts have yet to meaningfully move the unemployment rate or GDP, but the recent weakening of the labor market and rising “low-hire” environment suggest that pressures are growing. Additional cuts to federal employment or funding going forward may lead to hiring challenges and could lead to higher unemployment and/or lower GDP, moving us closer to the downside scenario. Location, location, location: The regional divide comes into focus Ultimately, when we look at the economy as a whole, macroeconomic conditions at the end of 2026 will most likely end up somewhere between our upside and downside scenarios. But how the labor market feels to job seekers and employers is highly dependent on their sector and where their feet are planted. There is considerable variation in job posting levels across the country, with some states sitting well below their pre-COVID norms and others still showing elevated demand. As of the end of October, for example, JPI in Washington, D.C., was 65.0 (35 percent below pre-COVID levels, lowest among all states and territories), while job postings in Alaska were 51.1% above February 2020 levels. Depending on where you live, an upside scenario may feel like a downside scenario, and vice versa. It is important to acknowledge the role migration plays in some of these local differences and dynamics. Many of the states with high JPI levels have also experienced relatively robust population growth, driven by cross-state migration, suggesting that increased consumer demand also drives employer demand. But in many states over the past five years, growth in job postings has exceeded population growth. In South Carolina, for example, job postings are 28.9 percent higher than in February 2020, while the state’s population is estimated to have grown only around 7 percent over the same time period. And in many of the states where the level of job postings relative to pre-pandemic norms is lower than the national average, postings are falling faster than changes in population. For example, in California, job postings are down around 17% compared to pre-COVID, while population growth estimates for the same period hover close to 0%. Clearly, job seekers will experience the labor market differently depending on each state’s underlying conditions. Variations in job postings are even more pronounced at the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) level, where many of the strongest job markets are in the Sunbelt and Mountain West regions. Interestingly, in nearly every state, the highest posting levels are found not in the largest MSAs, but in smaller and mid-size ones, where labor demand has proved more resilient. Take Georgia, for example. As of October 31, the JPI in Atlanta was 110, while the JPI in the smaller MSAs of Valdosta, Warner Robins, Macon, and Hinesville all exceeded 130. The same is true in Texas. JPI in Dallas and Houston stood at 105 and 111, respectively, at the end of October, while JPI in smaller MSAs, including Longview, Tyler, and San Angelo, was uniformly higher. Overall, as of October 31, the average JPI in the nation’s largest MSAs (population estimates above one million) was 98.6. In contrast, mid-size MSAs (250,000 to 999,999 residents) averaged 112.0, and small MSAs (under 250,000 residents) averaged 115.5. Much of this is driven by sector diversification. Employment in many of the largest MSAs tends to be skewed towards tech, business, and professional services, which are seeing lower levels of job postings. Smaller MSAs, however, tend to have heavier employment shares in sectors, including manufacturing, leisure and hospitality, and healthcare, which generally have job postings that remain near or higher than pre-COVID norms. As we move into 2026, much of the experience of both job seekers and companies looking to hire will depend on location. In smaller MSAs, labor supply will likely be tighter, and it may remain difficult to find workers with the skills employers are seeking. For job seekers in these locations and with the right skills, there may continue to be ample opportunities. But 2026 could remain an employers’ market in the largest MSAs. Job seekers, especially in non-healthcare-related fields, may have a more difficult time finding new employment opportunities. Conclusion: Why 2026 will be different, but not unrecognizable The labor market in 2026 is likely to feel different, but not unrecognizable. Across our consensus, upside and downside scenarios, unemployment, job openings, and GDP growth all remain within sight of where they are today — not too hot, not too cold, simply stable. The most probable outcome is not a dramatic break from current conditions, but an extension of today’s “low-hire, low-fire” environment in which both employers and job seekers face a slower, more selective market. The range of plausible outcomes is real, but so is the message from the data: big swings are unlikely. But small changes in the aggregate can often feel like big changes around the margins. Demand has cooled from a year ago in nearly every professional sector, but the pullback has been uneven. Opportunities remain relatively plentiful in fields including civil engineering and healthcare, and in many small and mid-size MSAs, particularly in the Sunbelt and Mountain West. But job seekers in media, scientific R&D, and other harder-hit professional fields, and those in large coastal MSAs with slower population growth and more exposure to tech and professional services, are likely to face tougher conditions. In 2026, where you live and what you do will matter for your professional prospects at least as much as movements in top-line national trends. The broader macroeconomic backdrop will also be defined by cross-currents. Consumer spending has so far kept GDP growth on solid ground, but it has increasingly been powered by higher-income households. Wage growth has cooled and inflation has eroded purchasing power for many lower- and middle-income workers. The full details and impacts of new tariff policies, immigration restrictions, and changes to federal spending are likely to remain uncertain for some time, and that uncertainty itself sits in the background of all our scenarios. Each of these forces has the potential to nudge the economy and labor market toward the upper or lower end of our forecast ranges, or, in the case of a particularly severe shock or beneficial breakthrough, beyond them. For employers, this environment underscores the importance of being both disciplined and opportunistic. In tighter local or occupational labor markets, maintaining a competitive edge on pay, flexibility, and career development will remain critical to attracting and retaining talent. In areas or sectors where more candidates are chasing fewer jobs, employers may find an opportunity to raise the bar on hiring, invest in training, and rethink role design to better match evolving skills and business needs. For job seekers, a slower but still growing economy means that patience and persistence will be essential, as will a willingness to adjust search strategies — including where they look, which roles they consider, and which skills they choose to build. This is a moment when timely, granular data matters more than ever. Official statistics will continue to provide an essential snapshot of where the economy is and has been. But in an era of heightened uncertainty and occasional data gaps, near real-time labor market information can help fill in the picture of where conditions may be headed. Indeed’s Job Postings Index, wage data, and local labor market indicators can give employers, job seekers, and policymakers a clearer view through the fog. We will continue to monitor these trends, refine our scenarios, and share new insights as the year unfolds. Methodology Our forecast scenarios were determined based on key assumptions about the relationship between a handful of economic variables: Forecasted GDP growth relative to potential GDP growth Sensitivity of the unemployment rate to GDP growth (Okun’s Law coefficient) Sensitivity of job openings to the unemployment rate (the slope of the Beveridge Curve) The numbers included in our downside scenario can provide a good example. Real year-over-year GDP growth of 0.9% in 2026 would represent a 1.1 percentage point (ppt) shortfall compared to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest estimates of potential GDP growth (2%). Based on estimates of an Okun’s Law of 0.45 — every 1 ppt shortfall in GDP growth compared to trend is associated with a 0.45 ppt increase in the unemployment rate — this slower pace of GDP growth translates to a 0.50 ppt rise in the estimated unemployment rate, from 4.3% at the end of 2025 to 4.8% by the end of 2026. That projected change in unemployment is then applied to the Beveridge Curve. Based on the estimated, longer-term -0.52 slope of the Beveridge Curve from 2010-2019 (excluding periods when unemployment exceeded 6%), the job openings rate declines 0.52 ppt for every 1 ppt increase in the unemployment rate. Therefore, the 0.50 ppt rise in the unemployment rate translates to a 0.26 ppt decline in the job opening rate. We estimate the job openings rate and job openings level to stand at 4.3% and 7.2 million, respectively, by year-end 2025. This means a 0.26 ppt drop would leave the job openings rate at 4%, and job openings at 6.8 million at the end of 2026. The number of job postings on Indeed.com, whether related to paid or unpaid job solicitations, is not indicative of the potential revenue or earnings of Indeed, which comprises a significant percentage of the HR Technology segment of its parent company, Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd. Job posting numbers are provided for information purposes only and should not be viewed as an indicator of the performance of Indeed or Recruit. Please refer to the Recruit Holdings investor relations website and regulatory filings in Japan for more detailed information on revenue generation by Recruit’s HR Technology segment. AI at Work Report 2025: How GenAI is Rewiring the DNA of Jobs What do you think about the the above? Do you agree? What are seeing internationally?
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Boosting Visibility: How Indeed’s Sponsored Jobs Help Employers Hire Faster

In today’s competitive hiring landscape, standing out in a sea of job listings is more crucial than ever. That’s where **Indeed’s Sponsored Jobs** product comes into play — a powerful tool designed to help employers get more visibility, better candidates, and faster hires. ## What Are Sponsored Jobs? **Sponsored Jobs** on Indeed are paid listings that receive premium placement in search results, unlike free job postings which appear based on relevance and recency. These sponsored listings are strategically displayed to attract more attention from job seekers, often appearing at the top of the search results and staying visible longer. ### Key Features: **Higher Visibility:** Sponsored Jobs appear in prominent positions across desktop and mobile platforms. **Performance-Based Pricing:** Employers only pay when a candidate engages with the job (e.g., clicks on the listing), giving better control over recruitment budgets. **Smart Targeting:** Indeed’s advanced algorithms ensure that sponsored listings are shown to the most relevant candidates based on location, skills, and search behavior. **Real-Time Insights:** Employers get access to performance data, helping them fine-tune job titles, descriptions, and budgets to improve outcomes. ## Why Use Sponsored Jobs? Companies of all sizes — from small businesses to large enterprises — use Sponsored Jobs to gain an edge in the hiring market. Here’s why it works: **Faster Hiring:** Sponsored jobs are 4.5x more likely to result in a hire, according to Indeed’s internal data. **Greater Exposure:** Job seekers are more likely to click on listings that appear at the top of their search results. **Flexible Budgeting:** Set a daily or total campaign budget with no long-term contracts — making it easy to scale up or down. ## Real-World Use Case Let’s say a retail chain needs to hire seasonal staff ahead of the holiday rush. Instead of waiting weeks for qualified applicants through free listings, they launch a Sponsored Job campaign on Indeed. Within days, they begin receiving applications from candidates actively searching for retail roles nearby — reducing time-to-hire significantly and ensuring the store is fully staffed for the busiest season
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