The job market trends are suggesting rapid changes in demand and supply along with the transformation of many jobs to a remote realm. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the job market and the recovery in hiring growth has been noticed in many job surveys.
Job trends help aspirants to refine their skills and enhance qualifications to stay relevant to the tastes of the market.
A recent job trend research by LinkedIn revealed 15 in-demand jobs in 2021 and it also documented the essential skills, qualifications and expected pay for each position.
The jobs trend report notes there has been a tectonic shift in job creation, nature of jobs and the skill sets. According to HR and recruiters, the important trend in the job market has been the rise of remote jobs and digital skills signalling a reinforcement of a hybrid model that will prevail in terms of video communications app-based meetings for coordination.
The expansion of remote working has been one of the great behavioural shifts in the workforce as a fall out of the pandemic. Also, hiring for remote jobs increased three times compared to pre-COVID levels evidenced in BPO/ITES, IT, education/teaching and internet/eCommerce.
Surveys show a majority of jobseekers, almost 60 percent preferring a hybrid model of working.
Up-skilling will be the key to be employability. So, taking a cue from the trends, job seekers need to upgrade their skills through up-skilling, and resources for expanding domain knowledge.
Remote working skills, coordination, communication and time management skills will increase the hiring chances.
Companies will continue to intensify virtual hiring and job seekers should prepare themselves for opportunities in online assessment and virtual interviews.
A surge of freelancing work and part-time jobs are part of the trends. In place of full-time positions, candidates can keep busy and earn experience by working on time-bound short projects.
As mentioned earlier, the Linkedin job trend survey has noted more than 10 hot jobs as the trending jobs based on the percentage of hiring growth, pay packet and skills. Some of them are discussed here.
Front End Ecommerce professionals: This category had the highest hiring rate of around 73 per cent per annum. According to a Linkedin report, there are 400,000 jobs spread in various job titles such as supply chain associate, package handler, drivers and personal shoppers.
skills required are customer service and leadership. The Salary Range is $42,000 – $56,000.
Loan and Mortgage Experts: Hiring for this category jumped 60 per cent since 2019 in titles including underwriter, mortgage loan officer, escrow officer, loan closer. The skills are customer service, risk management, and credit analysis.
Health Care Staff: Hiring accelerated 34 per cent for varied job titles such as health care assistant, pharmacy technician, dental assistant, home health aide.
Skills include patient education, data entry and physician relations. A bachelor’s degree or higher is enough. The salary range is $65,300 – $106,000.
Business Development and Sales: This has been growing more than 45 per cent in the last two years. Top job titles are sales consultant, inbound sales specialist, sales operations assistant, and strategic advisor. Skills needed are customer retention, sales process and team building. Salary range is from $43,300 to $105,000.
Digital Marketing professionals: The segment is seeing good hiring rates of 33 per cent year-over-year. An array of job titles has been up for grabs including digital marketing specialist, social media manager, and search engine optimization specialist. The skills are product marketing, digital strategy, brand management. A bachelor’s degree is the basic qualification and the salary ranges from $48,000 – $96,000 per annum
Nurses: Demand for nurses marked a huge jump by 30 per cent. They are hired as a registered nurse, nurse practitioner, certified nursing assistant and intensive care nurse. The skill sets are patient advocacy, clinical research and time management. The salary package is $73,000 to $111,000.
Education Professionals: The demand for education professionals surged 20 per cent over the years for slots like Teaching Assistant, Mathematics Tutor, Curriculum Developer and Elementary School Teacher.
The skills sought are lesson planning, communication and differentiated Instruction. Salary Range is $46,500 – $63,200.
Digital Content Creators: Demand for digital content creators shot up 49 per cent for jobs like content coordinator, blogger, writing consultant and podcaster.
The hot skills wanted are creative writing, video editing, and public speaking. The requirement is a bachelor’s degree and the salary offered is $46,000 – $62,400 a year.
Professional Coaches: Hiring for coaching roles jumped 50 per cent since 2019. The job titles include career coordinator, life coach, fitness coach and business coach. Skills include mentoring, social media, and entrepreneurship. A bachelor’s degree is the basic requirement and the salary is an average of $45,000.
Among the key job markets, North America especially the US has the optimism of faster recovery to pre Covid-19 levels.
Michael Stull, VP of global staffing firm ManpowerGroup North America says the job market is gaining momentum.
ManpowerGroup’s Employment Outlook Survey examines the hiring plans of employers in America’s 100 metropolitan areas.
Its job report predicts a net employment outlook of 17 per cent for the first quarter of 2021. The report also notes 13 per cent of employers hoping that pre-pandemic hiring will return by July 2021 as against 54 per cent who answered the same in the second quarter of 2020.
In the US, more jobs will be in the Midwest where ManpowerGroup sees a net employment jump of 20 per cent because of a rebound in manufacturing. The outlook on the South is 17 per cent, Northeast 16 per cent and the West at 15 per cent.
Among the emerging in-demand jobs are specialized engineers such as web developers, full-stack engineers, frontend developers and game developers.
The skill sets are program management and web development. The salary is in the range of $75,000 – $104,000.
Mental Health Specialists are also in good demand for positions like behaviour therapist, Psychotherapist and Mental health technicians.
User Experience (UX) professionals are hotly hired for slots like user experience designer, product design consultant, user interface designer for which Design Thinking, User Experience Testing are the skills sought.
The hiring of Data Science specialists is rising. They are taken for roles like data scientist, data science specialist and data management analyst. The skills are statistical modelling, data visualization and TensorFlow.
Artificial Intelligence Practitioners are hired for posts like artificial intelligence specialist, machine learning engineer, and Researcher positions with skills such as C++, and Python Programming Language.
To sum up, there is no dearth of opportunities in the job market but we see profiles and working methods and skillsets seeing a big paradigm shift.