Job openings up, but hiring slows as companies get pickier
In the United States, hiring increased by 4% from April to May, compared with a marginal increase globally.
Although job openings climbed 8% during the past month, hiring and turnover are both on a steep downward trend year over year – down 21% from May of last year.
This trend may signal that companies are taking longer to hire candidates, possibly due to more stringent hiring processes or challenges finding suitable candidates, according to the May edition of the BambooHR Workforce Insights report, which analyzed more than 4.5 million employee data points. The study evaluates hiring trends, review activity, and paid time off (PTO) requests and approvals.
North America continues to log the most hires, turnover and job postings compared to other countries, and in the United States, hiring increased by 4% from April to May, compared with a marginal increase globally.
In a multi-month trend, travel/hospitality and construction had the highest proportion of hires in May but also the highest turnover, which increased 33% from April. The tech sector had the lowest proportion of hires after a wave of layoffs impacted the tech world in 2022 and 2023, triggering slower hiring into 2024. The food and beverage sector had the second lowest proportion of hires.
Most industries saw an increase in turnovers from April to May 2024, including education, which had the second-highest change in turnover, in line with the end of the school year and contract signing for the upcoming year, the report said.
In the United States, both manager and peer reviews significantly increased since May of last year, up 15% and 10% respectively. Globally, reviews increased only about 1% month to month, with manager reviews specifically inching up, while manager reviews were up 9% year over year.
PTO requests and approvals were nearly identical in the United States year over year, but worldwide, PTO requests decreased 3% from May 2023 and approvals decreased marginally. Europe leads in PTO requests while North America, APAC, and LATAM logged PTO requests at or below 40%.
Related: Requests for PTO increase, study shows importance of work-life balance
The nonprofit industry had the highest proportion of PTO requests to employees in May, followed by finance and tech, with more than half of employees requesting PTO. Notably, nonprofit, finance, and technology are the only industries with more than 50% of employees requesting PTO. This closely correlates with access to paid time off. According to the most recent data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 95% of financial services workers had access to paid vacation.
Likewise, industries with less access to PTO benefits show lower rates of time-off requests, such as the hospitality industry. According to the US BLS, in 2021, only 43% of leisure and hospitality workers had access to PTO, which is reflected in the low percentage (27% in May) of time-off requests.