More Triangle jobs than unemployed workers

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Thousands of jobs remain open across the Triangle, with one national job board listing more than 80,000 open job roles in the region. And one big reason is this: There are fewer than 40,000 unemployed persons in the combined statistical area.

That’s based on the latest available unemployment data from the North Carolina Department of Commerce.

Good news for job seekers, a challenge for corporate recruiters – and a sign that warnings of a recession may be overblown, says one prominent economist.

“The labor shortage is why I think the Triangle is likely to be spared a recession if we have a mild/moderate national recession,” said Dr. Gerald Cohen, the chief economist at the Kenan Institute, in an interview with WRAL TechWire. “There is so much positive momentum in the region because of startups and the influx of companies moving to the region, creating jobs with people moving to the region following those jobs.”

The Triangle data reflects the continuing national trend with millions of unfilled jobs at a 2 to 1 ratio over unemployed totals.

This week’s WRAL TechWire Jobs Report shows that as of Monday, the job board Adzuna had more than 80,000 job openings available in the Triangle. Glassdoor had more than 40,500 openings with ZipRecruiter showing more than 59,000 openings and LinkedIn listing more than 43,000 available roles.

Not all the news is good. Layoffs, for example, keep being made.

Layoff Watch: Tech layoffs cast shadow over Triangle’s strong jobs market

And job openings at some of the region’s best-known companies have declined from more than 4,000 a month ago.

How many people are looking for work?

The latest available data from the North Carolina Department of Commerce shows that in July 2022, there were only 39,418 unemployed persons in the combined statistical area of Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, while there were 1,225,607 employed workers.

Still, unemployment may increase, Dr. Michael Walden, an economist and regular contributor to WRAL TechWire, warned. That’s because the Federal Reserve may take further action to tamp down the country’s inflation rate (the latest figures will be released on Tuesday morning and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is set to meet later this month).

“More interest rate hikes,” said Walden, could lead to “an absolute reduction in employment, and an increase in the jobless rate.”

Layoff anxiety is growing: Searches about job losses skyrocket across Triangle, US

Despite recent layoffs, openings for Triangle jobs outpacing unemployment

More people are entering the workforce if not by choice. For example, recent layoffs have hit high-profile companies headquartered in the Triangle, including Pendo and Avaya.

But it’s still “hire, hire hire” across the region.

For example, prior data analyzed by WRAL TechWire for past jobs reports shows that as of August 1, Adzuna had more than 90,500 openings, with Glassdoor showing more than 39,000 openings, ZipRecruiter with nearly 60,000 openings, and LinkedIn with more than 57,000 openings.

This week’s WRAL TechWire Jobs Report shows that on 13 of the 20 national job boards tracked for analysis, the number of job postings has decreased month-over-month. But half of the job boards have increased postings week-over-week, and the aggregate across all job boards, there were 6,189 more postings this week than last week, and 18,498 more postings this week than four weeks ago, according to the data.

“The chances of a true recession in early 2023 are rising,” said Walden. “Most economists expect such a recession to be mild, but there will be some adverse impacts on the labor market.”

Overall, he Triangle’s labor market may be more insulated than others nationwide, said Walden, due to the state’s economy and attractiveness to out-of-region firms and workers. “The negative effects will be more modest in the Triangle,” said Walden.

Here’s the latest on the Triangle job market.

Economist: More people are seeking jobs, driving up unemployment rate

Note: WRAL TechWire’s weekly Jobs Report compiles the latest information from the region’s top job boards, offering a breakdown of how many jobs are posted, which companies are hiring, and what positions are most in-demand. Here’s more from WRAL TechWire on the latest changes in the labor markets in our local economy. Below, we’ve gathered the latest upcoming job fairs, student-centric resources, and a list of Twitter accounts that track local job openings. Here’s what’s new since the last WRAL TechWire Jobs Report.

The latest on Triangle jobs

Each week, WRAL TechWire tracks the total number of Triangle-area positions posted on major job websites, across 20 different searches. Here is the latest data, as of 1 PM on Monday, September 12. We use the shorthand abbreviation “MoM” for month-over-month and “YTD” for year-to-date in our report. This week’s report also includes tracking the month-over-month gains as a percentage increase or decrease in the total number of postings measured by WRAL TechWire.

Adzuna:
- Wake County: 59,137 (⇑+11,226 or 23.43% MoM; ⇑+16,606 YTD)
  - Raleigh: 47,421 (⇑+8,682 or 22.41% MoM; ⇑+23,477 YTD)
- Durham County: 16,972 (⇑+4,191 or 32.79% MoM; ⇑+7,218 YTD)
- Johnston County: 3,909 (⇑+644 or 19.72% MoM; ⇑+680 YTD)*
Dice.com (using the 5-mile radius filter):
- Raleigh: 17,549 (⇓-924 or -5.0% MoM; ⇑+2,278 YTD)
- Durham: 16,864 (⇓-865 or -4.88% MoM; ⇑+1,684 YTD)
- Chapel Hill: 16,531 (⇓-1,057or -5.24% MoM; ⇑+1,542 YTD)
Glassdoor: 40,580 jobs across the Research Triangle Park area (⇓-1,057 or -2.54% MoM; ⇑+5,732 YTD)
Indeed:
- Raleigh: 21,930 (⇓-855 or -3.75% MoM; ⇑+5,522 YTD)
- Durham: 12,903 (⇓-60 or -0.46% MoM; ⇑+2,866 YTD)
- Chapel Hill: 3,414 (⇓-1,029 or -23.16% MoM; ⇓-474 YTD)
- Johnston County: 3,635 (⇓-47 or -1.28% MoM; ⇑+2,658 YTD)
LinkedIn (using the “exact location” and “0-miles” filters):
- Raleigh: 26,871 (⇑+753 or 2.88% MoM; ⇑+6 YTD)
- Durham: 11,376 (⇓-1,171 or -9.33% MoM; ⇓-3,111 YTD)
- Chapel Hill: 2,961 (⇓-545 or -15.54% MoM; ⇑+531 YTD)
- Johnston County: 1,800 (⇓-200 or -10.0% MoM; ⇑+254 YTD)
ZipRecruiter (5-mile filter):
- Raleigh: 39,569 (⇓-68 or -0.17% MoM; ⇑+6,347 YTD)
- Durham: 18,185 (⇑+747 or 4.28% MoM; ⇑+3,327 YTD)
- Chapel Hill: 955 (⇓-17 or -1.75% MoM; ⇓-2,689 YTD)
- Johnston County: 407 ( ⇑+7 or 1.75% MoM; ⇑+28 YTD)*

Is Triangle jobs market slowing? Number of openings remains volatile

Methodology on measuring Triangle job market

Editor’s Notes: The month-over-month totals are compared to our August 1 report, and the year-to-date totals compare to our Jan. 3 report. **We’ve also updated the methodology for which we track Johnston County job openings on LinkedIn, twice now, in July and in August, as the platform updated how jobs display, and in today’s report return to month-over-month comparisons. *And, the year-to-date data for Johnston County tracks from Jan. 31, 2022, when we began to track job postings in the county for the WRAL TechWire Jobs Report.

Weekly Startup Jobs Report

Aside from the boards above, job seekers can also find local startup positions at these sites:

SimplyHired (186 startup jobs near Research Triangle Park, no change from last week, but -3 MoM and down 49 openings YTD)
LinkedIn (10,376 job openings that include “startup” in the Triangle region, ⇑+1,854 or 21.76% MoM; ⇑+2,309 YTD),
Indeed (246 startup jobs in/near RTP, ⇓-8 or -3.15% MoM; ⇓-77 YTD)
AngelList (38 job openings in Raleigh, 10 in Durham and 80 total across North Carolina, down 24%, 37.50%, and 23.08%, respectively, month-over-month)
Durham-based job site InHerSight also lists jobs at local startups among other job postings (139 this week this week within 25 miles of Raleigh, -7 or -4.79% job postings from a month ago)

Here’s a look at local and regional job sites, listed in alphabetical order, below.

AMA Triangle

AMA Triangle, the fifth-largest chapter in American Marketing Association’s nationwide network, aims to be a go-to resource for all things marketing in the Triangle. The organization provides professional training, free career webinars and a job board offering free resume placement for marketing professionals.

As of Monday, the AMA Triangle job board shows 49 roles close to Raleigh (down from 97 roles last week and 124 in the prior week, with a MoM drop of 63.16%) and another 44 roles, some of which overlap, close to Durham (down from 85 openings last week and 95 openings the prior week, also a significant drop of 52.17 openings MoM).

American Underground

Durham-based startup hub American Underground (Editor’s Note: American Underground is owned by Capitol Broadcasting Company, the parent company of WRAL TechWire) regularly posts job openings on its job board. Job seekers can filter their search by company, location and job function. As of Monday, the site shows 158 jobs at 58 companies, down from 175 openings last week.

Bio Jobs Hub

Last year, WRAL TechWire and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center launched a Bio Jobs Hub platform focused on biopharma manufacturing — one of North Carolina’s largest industries, employing over 26,000 people.

Typical biopharma jobs include process technicians, maintenance and/or instrumentation technicians, quality assurance and quality control associates, process development scientists and process engineers. This industry also offers competitive entry-level salaries, from $42,000 to $60,000. Scientists, skilled laborers and recent graduates can use the Bio Jobs Hub resource to find career and training opportunities in their area. Users can search by location, job category/activity and region.

Many biopharma companies are hiring in the Triangle, including Altis Biosystems in Durham, IDDI in Raleigh, and Ascent Bio-Nano Technologies, Inc. and MedKoo Biosciences in Morrisville. Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist is hiring a head of biotech and life science ecosystem development, as well.

Leadership Triangle

Leadership Triangle’s job board is full of job opportunities, including from small, mid-size, and large employers. The site lists 1,592 job openings (down from 1,734 openings last week, but up 94 openings from a month ago) at 30 companies.

NCBiotech

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s extensive jobs board lists open jobs and internships from local life science companies and research organizations. The organization recently updated the user interface with a fresh design. Job seekers can filter their search results by position title, job function and location. NCBiotech also touts jobs through its Bio Jobs Hub program.

The site lists 131 job openings as of Monday, down from 157 openings last week and down 48 openings or 26.82% from a month ago. (Editor’s Note: This list does not include openings posted by recruiting/staffing firms.)

NC TECH

The North Carolina Technology Association (NC TECH) has an interactive job board that you can use to find your next career opportunity. Users can search by keyword, location, category, type (full-time or part-time) and experience level.

Raleigh Founded

Raleigh Founded, a startup incubator and coworking space that is celebrating its 10th anniversary soon, has its own job board. Job seekers can filter results by company, company size, industry and job function. The site currently lists 52 positions as of Monday.

Triangle Region Job Board

Leadership Triangle, Raleigh Founded and American Underground teamed up to create the Triangle Region Job Board, which synthesizes all of the openings posted on the organizations’ job boards.

As of Monday, the site shows 2,746 job openings. That’s down from last week, when there were 2,948 openings, and also down 308 openings or 10.09% from a month ago.

Work in the Triangle

Work in the Triangle, a Wake County Economic Development program, regularly shares new openings through its Twitter feed, @WorkTriangleNC. The program launched a job board on its website earlier this year, with 8,143 openings on Monday. That’s a drop from 8,930 openings a week ago and 9,407 openings the prior week, with the drop nearly all due to a decrease in the number of technology openings on the job board.

And, there are 941 fewer openings now, or a drop of 10.36%, than a month ago. Still, of the current job openings, 6,364 are technology jobs (down from 7,105 openings last week), 1,040 are advanced manufacturing positions (down 13 openings from last week), 321 are in cleantech (down 15 openings from last week) and 417 are in life sciences roles (down 18 openings from last week).

Every Tuesday, Work in the Triangle’s #TriangleTuesdays hashtag lists hot jobs in the area. Scroll through the #TriangleTuesdays hashtag on Twitter today for more details on the latest openings.

Triangle jobs at top local firms

Here’s the latest on Triangle job openings at some of the region’s most notable employers, as of Monday afternoon, with any significant changes noted:

Amazon: 86 job openings in the Triangle, though some roles can be done remotely, according to the company’s career page
Apple (corporate roles): 86 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
Bandwidth: 22 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page
Cisco: 218 job openings in Research Triangle Park, according to the company’s career page
Citrix: 2 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page (down from 25 openings earlier this summer)
Eli Lilly: 35 job openings in Research Triangle Park, according to the company’s career page
Fidelity Investments: 555 job openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page
FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies: 64 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
Google: 211 jobs openings in Durham (down 13 from last week and 29 over the last two weeks), according to the company’s career page, and 2 with Google Fiber (down from a recent high of 13 openings)
IBM: 2 job opening in RTP, according to the company’s career page, though the company reported quarterly earnings in July and did say it would continue to hire in August.
IQVIA: 433 job openings in RTP, according to the company’s career page
Kyndryl: 95 job openings in RTP (down 14 from last week), according to the company’s career page
Labcorp: 246 job openings in Burlington (headquarters), according to the company’s career page
Lenovo: 304 job openings in Morrisville, according to the company’s career page
MetLife: 128 job openings in Cary, according to the company’s career page. MetLife told WRAL TechWire last week that it planned to hire 400 workers by New Year’s Day.
Microsoft: 25 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page
NetApp: 193 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
Novo Nordisk: 6 jobs in the Triangle (down from 193 openings a few weeks ago and down from 179 job openings last week), according to the company’s career page)
Novartis: 6 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
Pendo: 3 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page. The technology unicorn did announce there would be Pendo layoffs last week with less than 5% of the company’s workforce, and less than two dozen employees in Raleigh affected.
Red Hat: 30 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page. Red Hat is owned by IBM.
RTI International: 134 job openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page.
SAS: 149 job openings in Cary, according to the company’s career page.
*Toshiba Global Commerce: 64 openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page. (WRAL TechWire began to track job openings at this firm less than a month ago, so no month-over-month data is available.)
Wolfspeed: 223 job openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page. The company announced a $4.5 billion investment that is expected to bring some 1,800 jobs to the region on Friday, as reported earlier this year by WRAL TechWire.

Pendo lays off 5% of workforce, including a few dozen in Raleigh

Upcoming hiring events

Grifols, a healthcare company with a manufacturing facility in Clayton, is looking to hire 50 workers at a hiring event this week, with plans to extend offers to qualified candidates as soon as the end of this week.

The company will host this “accelerated hiring event” on site in Clayton on September 14, from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. A spokesperson for the company told WRAL TechWire that any interested job seeker can register online in advance and should arrive no later than 8 p.m.

Here are more job fairs and resources to help people looking for employment.

NC State Engineering Career Fair: Sept. 20–21 (in-person and virtual) In this hybrid career fair, NC State engineering students can meet with employers seeking talent across a range of industries. This is a two-day event: The first day will be held in person, while the second will take place virtually via Career Fair Plus. More details here.
NC TECH Virtual Jobs Fair: Oct. 5 (online). The NC TECH Job Expo is primarily focused on candidates seeking tech-related jobs/careers and internships. Whether actively seeking a job or interested in learning more about the participating employers.