Q3 2024 US Business-to-Business Labor Market Update: Still waiting for a software update

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The Indeed Hiring Lab tracks business-to-business (B2B) hiring trends by analyzing Indeed’s latest data. We examine overall job market trends and dive deeper into job posting trends in various B2B professional categories. Finally, we focus on recent developments in layoffs and worker turnover.

Relations:

  • The ongoing decline in job postings that began in early 2022 showed signs of leveling off in the third quarter of 2024. As of October 18, job postings were 10.8% above pre-pandemic levels.
  • Job postings for software developers fell below pre-pandemic levels in spring 2023 and remained almost 33% below pre-pandemic levels as of October 18.
  • Software development salary growth has picked up, climbing by one percentage point in the past six months.
  • Salary transparency—measured as the percentage of job postings within a given sector that contain some information on proposed salaries—has increased over the past year in all B2B sectors except Construction.

Lab Sr. Economist Hiring Video Daniel Culbertson discussing the US Labor Market update in Q3 2024 with a focus on the B2B vertical.

Really job postings

Despite falling 13% from a year ago, the US Job Postings Index (JPI) remained 10.8% above pre-pandemic levels as of October 18. After falling steadily since the start of 2022, the US JPI showed signs of stabilization over the summer. staying in a narrow range between 10% and 13% above pre-pandemic rates for several months. This suggests that the cooling in demand for workers over the past several years has stopped, at least for now, leaving some employers facing little competition when looking to hire.

Line graph titled
The line chart titled “US Job Postings Remain 10.8% Above Pre-Pandemic Baseline” shows the change in job postings on Indeed from their pre-pandemic baseline date to October 18, 2024. US Job Postings have fallen by 12.9% over the past year.

Business-to-business mailings

Job posting trends within the broader B2B vertical cover a wide range of segments and industries. Job postings in the insurance sector, for example, have held up relatively well, falling just 3.5% over the past year and remaining 32% above their pre-pandemic level. Software development postings, on the other hand, have fallen 11.1% in the past year and remain almost 33% below pre-pandemic levels.

Table titled
The table titled “Finance and Software Job Postings Remain Below Pre-Pandemic Baseline” shows trends in job postings over the past year through October 18, 2024, and from the pre-pandemic baseline, for several B2B occupations. Manufacturing and manufacturing job postings decreased 23.9% over the past year, but remained up 12.9% from their pre-pandemic baseline.

Increase wages from business to business

Wage growth in the B2B vertical was somewhat mixed. Posted wages for Education and Guidance roles rose 4.6% year-on-year in September, well above the labor market average of 3.3% over the same period. And while overall annual posted wage growth for Software Development jobs lagged far behind (at just 1.4%) in September, it picked up over the summer, climbing a percentage point between March and September.

Table titled
The table titled “Software Development Salary Growth Growth” shows the year-over-year growth in posted salaries through September 2024, as well as the percentage point change over the past six months, by job category. Software development and construction salaries increased by 1.4% and 2.3% year-over-year, respectively.

B2B payment transparency

While the momentum toward higher levels of salary transparency may have slowed, a clear majority (57.8%) of job postings on Indeed contained salary or wage information in September. For the most part, sectors in the B2B vertical are not as salary transparent as the overall labor market, with only the Construction sector boasting a higher percentage of transparent salary postings than the overall national average. But while it still lags behind, pay transparency in the broader B2B vertical increased between September 2023 and September 2024 in all categories except Construction.

Table titled
The table titled “Most software development jobs now list salary information” shows salary transparency data for September 2023, September 2024, and the percentage point change over the course of that year, for several B2B occupations. In September 2024, Software Development and Construction had salary information in 56% and 62.1% of job postings, respectively.

For more job market insights from Indeed Hiring Lab, visit us at hiringlab.org.

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