Triangle labor market strong despite dip in job postings

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Even though a new report concludes that the Triangle’s labor market is well-insulated from recessionary environments, should the nation fall into a recession in the near future, the latest analysis of the Triangle’s job market shows that the number of postings have fallen on 90% of the job boards tracked since a week ago.

If job boards are a canary in the coal mine for future hiring trends then the bird is still alive. But breathing conditions continue to vary week to week – some weeks bad, such as the latest WRAL TechWire Jobs Report finds – and some weeks good, like last week. [Check out TW’s breakdown of the job boards and what other jobs information sites are offering in the report as follows.]

But those who follow jobs are not of one mind about what’s happening and why the jobs market remains so volatile.

“September was another month with headlines and data that are often contradictory,” said Andrea Fleming, Director of Talent and Workforce Development at NC TECH, about its very positive September report which was issued Monday. “For example, both North Carolina and US job postings jumped both month-to-month and year-over-year, while major financial institutions warn of job losses and recessions.”

While the aggregate number of job postings has decreased week-over-week by 5,200 openings, or -1.41% since a week ago, the number of job openings is still up 1.4% from a month ago, or up 5,007 total openings across all job boards.

That’s even as 13 of the 20 job board searches tracked by WRAL TechWire show a decrease in job openings from a month ago.

And workers are growing increasingly worried about losing their jobs if a recession – as widely expected now – hits.

Yet our “top 40” of Triangle companies we track for job openings are still looking to fill some 4,000 jobs – a number that remains stable week in and week out despite the economic turbulence.

58% of workers now fear losing their jobs if recession hits, survey says

But the latest IT jobs report from NC TECH shows that demand for high-tech roles remains high in North Carolina, and the most recent Labor Outlook for Raleigh-Durham from JLL shows that the Triangle has real strengths compared to the rest of the nation when it comes to the labor market.

What’s the latest? The WRAL TechWire Jobs Report explores the latest data on the region’s labor market.

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.

Triangle jobs keep growing – but there’s a big problem: Lack of workers

The data 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 Monday afternoon. 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: 64,509 (⇑+6,124 or 10.49% MoM; ⇑+21,978 YTD)
  - Raleigh: 50,672 (⇑+4,251 or 9.16% MoM; ⇑+26,728
  - YTD)
- Durham County: 19,660 (⇑+2,135 or 12.18% MoM; ⇑+9,906 YTD)
- Johnston County: 4,232 (⇑+263 or 6.63% MoM; ⇑+1,003YTD)*
Dice.com (using the 5-mile radius filter):
- Raleigh: 17,173(⇓-168 or -0.97% MoM; ⇑+1,802 YTD)
- Durham: 16,408 (⇓-282 or -1.69% MoM; ⇑+1,228 YTD)
- Chapel Hill: 16,195 (⇓-257 or -1.50% MoM; ⇑+1,206YTD)
Glassdoor: 39,478 jobs across the Research Triangle Park area (⇓-742 or -1.84% MoM; ⇑+4,630 YTD)
Indeed:
- Raleigh: 21,367 (⇓-512 or -2.34% MoM; ⇑+4,959 YTD)
- Durham: 11,046 (⇓-1,494 or -11.91% MoM; ⇑+1,009 YTD)
- Chapel Hill: 3,166 (⇓-344 or -9.8% MoM; ⇓-722 YTD)
- Johnston County: 3,581 (⇓-7 or -0.20% MoM; ⇑+2,604 YTD)
LinkedIn (using the “exact location” and “0-miles” filters):
- Raleigh: 25,864 (⇓-792 or -2.97% MoM; ⇓-1,001 YTD)
- Durham: 11,209 (⇓-661 or -5.57% MoM; ⇓-3,278 YTD)
- Chapel Hill: 2,532 (⇓-437 or -14.72% MoM; ⇑+102 YTD)
- Johnston County: 1,970 (⇑+124 or 6.72% MoM; ⇑+424 YTD)
ZipRecruiter (5-mile filter):
- Raleigh: 37,3504 (⇓-493 or -1.3 MoM; ⇑+4,128 YTD)
- Durham: 14,662 (⇓-1,728 or -10.57% MoM; ⇓-236 YTD)
- Chapel Hill: 900 (+/-0 and 0% MoM; ⇓-2,744 YTD)
- Johnston County: 412 (⇑+17 or 4.3% MoM; ⇑+33 YTD)*

High-tech job openings in NC jump to 37,000+ – 3rd highest on record

Methodology on measuring Triangle job market

Editor’s Notes: The month-over-month totals are compared to our August 30 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 (167 startup jobs near Research Triangle Park, down 6 postings from last week and down 9 from last month)
LinkedIn (9,004 job openings that include “startup” in the Triangle region, down 668 jobs from last week and down 1,530 jobs from a month ago)
Indeed (225 startup jobs in/near RTP)
AngelList (23 job openings in Raleigh, 8 in Durham and 55 total across North Carolina, down 9, four, and 16 job openings from a week ago, respectively)
Durham-based job site InHerSight also lists jobs at local startups among other job postings (174 job openings this week, up from 147 last week.)

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 114 roles close to Raleigh (up from 97 roles posted last week), and another 70 roles, some of which overlap, close to Durham (up from 4 roles open last week).

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 143 jobs.

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.

Leadership Triangle

Leadership Triangle’s job board is full of job opportunities, including from small, mid-size, and large employers. The site lists 1,545 job openings at 30 companies (down 209 jobs from last week).

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 180 job openings as of Monday, down 14 jobs from a week 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. NC TECH released the September IT Jobs Report on Monday, which found more than 37,000 openings, the third most in any month of the last 13 months.

Raleigh Founded

Raleigh Founded, a startup incubator and coworking space that celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, has its own job board. Job seekers can filter results by company, company size, industry and job function. The site currently lists 61 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 2,776 job openings. That’s down from 2,985 openings from last week.

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 6,271 active job listings as of Monday afternoon. Last week, there were only 5,823 job openings on Monday and the prior week, there were 6,518 openings.

Of the current job openings, 4,609 are technology jobs (up from 4,264 openings a week ago), 921 are advanced manufacturing positions (up from 874 openings a week ago), 334 are in cleantech (up from 318 open roles last week) and 406 are in life sciences roles (up from 366 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.

Who is hiring in Triangle? These 40 firms are looking for 4,000 people

Where are the jobs in the Triangle?

Amazon: 69 job openings in the Triangle (down 12 openings a week ago), though some roles can be done remotely, according to the company’s career page. Amazon is closing multiple North Carolina facilities, though a company spokesperson told WRAL TechWire that Amazon is not laying off any workers. Workers at an Amazon facility in Garner continue efforts to unionize including speaking with other Amazon workers in the state. The company is also hiring for more than 1,000 roles in North Carolina
Apple (corporate roles): 60 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page, down one role from a week ago. The company announced the iPhone 14 and other products at an event produced last month.
Bandwidth: 23 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page (up 10 jobs openings from a week ago). The company will require its employees to work in-person five days per week, WRAL TechWire reported this month.
BASF*: 32 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina*: 41 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
BD*: 15 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
Cisco: 221 job openings in Research Triangle Park, according to the company’s career page
Citrix: 21 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page
Credit Suisse*: 56 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page. Stock prices plunged in early October.
Duke Energy*: 12 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page, the same as last week.
Eaton*: 74 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page. Earlier this year, the company announced plans to hire about 170 workers who will be based in the company’s revamped Raleigh office. There are 10 more openings this week compared to last.
Eli Lilly: 36 job openings in Research Triangle Park, according to the company’s career page
Fidelity Investments: 567 job openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page, down from 581 openings a week ago
FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies: 64 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
Google: 230 job openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page. The company is making cuts in some areas of the company but is expected to continue to hire for the Durham engineering hub, WRAL TechWire reported earlier this year.
Grifols*: 129 job openings in North Carolina, including in Durham and Clayton, according to the company’s career page, up 10 roles from a week ago
GlaxoSmithKline*: 113 job openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page
IBM: 4 job opening in RTP, according to the company’s career page. There’s been no change in recent weeks, though the company said it would continue to hire in August.
IQVIA: 369 job openings in RTP, according to the company’s career page (down 20 jobs from a week ago and down from 420 openings a month ago)
Kyndryl: 74 job openings in RTP, according to the company’s career page
Labcorp: 279 job openings in Burlington, N.C., according to the company’s career page
Lenovo: 258 job openings in Morrisville, according to the company’s career page, down from 284 job openings a week ago.
MetLife: 127 job openings in Cary, according to the company’s career page, down 6 openings from a week ago. MetLife told WRAL TechWire recently that it planned to hire 400 workers by New Year’s Day and will host an employer informational session through NC TECH today.
Merck*: 19 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
Microsoft: 11 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page, down from 21 a week ago
NetApp: 107 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
Novo Nordisk: 190 jobs in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page, up from 172 a week ago. And even more jobs could be coming to a Novo Nordisk location in Johnston County, WRAL TechWire reported earlier this month. (Some previous weekly reports underreported the total number of available company jobs in the Triangle, due to an error from WRAL TechWire.)
Novartis: 7 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page. The company is closing a Wilson plant.
Pendo: 10 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page. The technology unicorn did announce there would be Pendo layoffs earlier this year totaling less than 5% of the company’s workforce, and less than two dozen employees in Raleigh affected.
Pfizer*: 103 job openings in North Carolina, according to the company’s career page
Red Hat: 24 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page. Red Hat is owned by IBM and recently had a leadership change.
RTI International: 116 job openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page, up five openings from last week
SAS: 126 job openings in Cary, according to the company’s career page, down 24 openings from last week. Some of the available roles are remote-based positions.
Science 37*: 7 job openings that could be based in Raleigh, though some other roles are remote positions
Sensus (Xylem)*: 49 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
Spectrum*: 38 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
Syneos Health*: 5 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page
Toshiba Global Commerce: 65 openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page
Wolfspeed: 248 job openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page. The company announced a $5 billion investment that is expected to bring some 1,800 jobs to the region, as reported earlier this year by WRAL TechWire.
Worldwide Clinical Trials*: 66 job openings in North Carolina, according to the company’s careers page

Editor’s Note: An asterisk indicates that WRAL TechWire began tracking jobs at the company less than one month ago.

Upcoming hiring events

2022 Virtual Fall Graduate, Law & Professional School Fair: Nov. 2 (Virtual). The 2022 Virtual Fall Graduate, Law & Professional School Fair (hosted by NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Wilmington and Wake Forest University) is an opportunity for students to network with graduate and professional school admissions representatives. There will be an opportunity for one-on-one chats with representatives, group information sessions, or a combination of the two, as selected by each program.
2022 NC Master’s & Doctoral Virtual Career Fair: Nov. 3 (Virtual). Graduate and professional students and post-docs in humanities/social sciences and STEM fields are cordially invited to participate in this virtual event put on by six North Carolina institutions (Duke, NC State, UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte, UNC Greensboro, and Wake Forest University).
Carolina Startup Connect: Nov. 9 (Carolina Union). This isn’t your average college career fair. It’s designed specifically for startup companies to meet with entrepreneurial-minded students from UNC-Chapel Hill and Carolina Central Community College who have high-demand skills and a passion for working at startups.