January LinkedIn U.S. Workforce Report: Business Skills Surge in Importance in Traditional Finance Hubs

In the first monthly Workforce Report of 2019, we looked at the rising demand of business management skills in traditional finance hubs. Business management skills - such as strategy, vendor management, and change management - have increased in demand and are becoming relatively more important in traditional finance hubs such as New York, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia. At the same time, finance-related skills have become relatively less important in these regions over the same time period.

Other key insights:

• U.S. hiring slows modestly ​ ​– U.S. hiring has moderated since the summer with declines in November and December. Across all industries, national gross hiring in the U.S. was 4.1% higher than in December 2017, but seasonally-adjusted national hiring was 0.7% lower in December from November 2018. The cities with the biggest year-over-year declines in December were Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL (4.4% lower) and St. Louis, MO (2.4% lower). Despite the overall decline, industries like Software & IT Services (13% higher); Corporate Services (11.5% higher); and Agriculture (11.1% higher) demonstrated significant year-over-year hiring increases in December.

• Coastal workers are meeting in the middle - Austin continues to draw the most workers and has the biggest year-over-year increase in hiring rate of all cities (15.8% higher). For every 10,000 LinkedIn members in Austin, 130 arrived within the past 12 months. This inflow into Austin has coincided with the city’s strong economic growth, and most new arrivals are largely coming from coastal powerhouses like the San Francisco Bay Area (8.1%) and New York City (5.8%).

Click here to read more of our January 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.