Hundreds of thousands of jobs cut in the U.S. Hundreds of thousand new jobs added to the economy. As the final numbers and surveys from 2024 get wrapped up and shared out, there remain as many questions as answers when it comes to hiring the Right People for any business. Will it be harder to hire top talent in 2025 than it was last year? Will there be more openings for job seekers to consider? Will employees be leaving their current jobs more readily, in search of new opportunities, or will they continue to stay where they are?
With the jobs numbers and numbers surrounding jobs on everybody’s mind, this week’s Five on Friday takes a look at the latest jobs info, a report on jobs over the past year and a glimpse at what the next half of this decade might hold for employers and employees worldwide…
761,358: Number of jobs that were cut 2024, according to a new report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas—the largest such annual cut in any year over the past decade.
“Through much of 2024 we saw that uncertainty—whether it was uncertainty about the economy, about the presidential election, about the ongoing question of return-to-office and remote work, any number of factors—was no doubt having an impact on the hiring market,” says ECLARO Co-Founder Paul Sheridan. “Now that some of the questions have been answered, some of that uncertainty is dissipating.”
256,000: U.S. jobs added in December 2024—outpacing expectations, and the largest number of new jobs since March of last year—according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (over the course of 2024, the U.S. economy created 2.23 million jobs). Unemployment also dropped month-over-month, from 4.2% to 4.1%, bringing the yearly average to 4.0% vs. 3.6% in 2023. The job quit rate in November, according to the USBLS, fell nearly two percent from the month before. But in some areas, look for people to start looking for jobs elsewhere this year…
47% of tech professionals are actively seeking new jobs, up from 29% last year, according to a survey by Dice.
“While this means good news for companies looking to bring in top talent, it also underscores the age-old challenge of how to retain top talent once you have it on your team,” ECLARO Co-Founder Tom Sheridan says. “A key element of our talent acquisition strategy is finding candidates who we are confident will be part of a team for the long haul.
“The Dice survey also notes that 59% of the tech pros who were surveyed say that they feel they are underpaid—even with average tech salaries having risen 1.2%,” Tom adds. “As the press release for the survey noted, people are looking for more than just salary when the consider what their true compensation is. When we advise our clients on compensation that will be required to attract and hold on to the Right People, we stress that many job candidates put factors from benefits to career growth opportunities into the equation.”
170 million: Estimated number of jobs that will be added to the global workplace by 2030, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025. The leading areas for fastest growth are anticipated to be—and there’s no great shock here—in technology roles, notably big data specialists, FinTech engineers and AI and machine-learning specialists.
92 million: Estimated jobs that will be lost, according to that same World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025.
“It’s essential for everyone at every level to continually learn new skills and embrace new technologies, to keep themselves valuable in this ever-evolving global workforce,” Paul Sheridan says. “Whether it’s students at ECLARO Academy who are preparing to just enter the job market or the CEO of a global firm that’s a household name, we always encourage people to stay curious, to be lifelong learners, and to keep a vigilant eye on where the future—especially the future of their industry—is headed. The future gets here a lot faster these days, and everyone needs the Right People to help them lead the way.”