August LinkedIn Workforce Report: Data Science Skills are in High Demand Across Industries
Growing demand has led to a nationwide shortage of 151,717 people with data science skills
This month, we’re looking at the increased demand for data scientists as data science skills shortages spread beyond the finance and tech industries. Just three years ago, there was a national surplus of people with data science skills — an employer in Dallas or Atlanta who wanted to hire a data scientist had plenty of options since there were few local shortages. But as more industries turn to big data, the national shortage has grown to 151,717 people, based on employer hiring demand. The U.S. cities with particularly acute shortages are New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles.
Other key insights:
Summer of strong hiring continues through July – Nationally, across all industries, gross hiring in the U.S. was 4.6% higher than in July 2017. Seasonally-adjusted national hiring was up 0.5% in July from June 2018. The industries with the biggest year-over-year hiring increases in June were agriculture (26% higher); manufacturing (12.3% higher); and transportation & logistics (12% higher). Hiring in these sectors is running strong today, but they are also among the most vulnerable to a trade war escalation.
Austin’s job market has never been hotter – In July, hiring in Austin, TX, was up 14.3% from last year. The strong job market is drawing people from all over the country, bringing Austin to #1 on our ranking of U.S. cities attracting the most workers. Austin’s thriving tech scene is a big magnet, as indicated by large skills shortages in development tools and data storage technologies. But the city also has severe shortages in non-domain-specific skills, such as oral communication and digital literacy.
Click here to read more of our August LinkedIn Workforce Report, including which cities are losing the most workers, and which are gaining the most.
With over 150 million LinkedIn members in the United States, LinkedIn has unique insight into the real-time dynamics of Americans starting new jobs, learning new skills, and moving to new cities.
The LinkedIn Workforce Report helps workers better navigate their careers by highlighting workforce trends in the U.S. and across 20 cities. Insights include whether hiring is up, down, or flat, which skills cities need most, and where workers are moving to and from.