December 2021 Jobs Recap and 2021 Year in Review: A year of growth and changes

Job listings year-over-year

Though we’ve retired the word ‘unprecedented’, we’d be almost tempted to bring it back to recap 2021. It seems only fitting for a year that saw such significant growth and changes in employment numbers, expectations, and trends. Overall active job listings were up 53.6%; created job listings were up 64.4% and deleted job listings rose 56.1%. In fact, the only months we saw job listings decline in 2021 were in November (-6.9%) and December (-0.5%).

Job listings grew in all states, sectors, and occupations in 2021. The increase across occupations was particularly substantial, with all occupations seeing listings grow by over 25% in last year. Unsurprisingly the slowest to increase were those still the most affected by covid—Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations (+25% in 2021) and Sales and Related Occupations (+40%). Job demand increased the most for Business and Financial (+96%), Computer and Mathematical (+79%), and Management occupations (68%) in the past year.

Recent slow down

News is positive, even with the recent stall in job growth. Half of states, and 62% of industries and occupations saw job listings increase in December. Last month’s declining job openings trend hit Food (-7%), Sales (-3%), and Transportation (-3%) occupations the hardest.

December saw the most jobs opening up in Protective Services, Community and Social Service, Cleaning and Maintenance, Business and Financial Operations, and Healthcare Support occupations. A shift away from traditional corporate roles to more direct service professions.

On another positive note, Real Estate industry job listings increased 5% in December. As we discussed last month, based on our job data, historically we’ve seen job listings increase, as well as job seeker interest increase as we head into January.

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