Number of open positions shrinks across Triangle, analysis of jobs boards finds

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Companies appear to be slowing hiring entering the Thanksgiving holiday, with the aggregate total number of posted jobs in the Triangle as contained within the weekly WRAL TechWire Jobs Report slipping below 340,000 openings for only the third time in the past five months.

Economist Dr. Mike Walden of N.C. State says he expects job numbers to fluctuate given the uncertain economic times.

“At the national level, investors’ economic outlook has whipsawed up and down, depending on the interpretation of newly released data,” says Walden. “Uncertainly is high, mainly because the direction of the macro-economy is being influenced by the Covid overhang. Many analysts think the ‘rules of the macroeconomy’ will be different this time, particularly in the labor market. Until we are able to better discern the direction of the economy, we will see rapid ups and downs in optimism.”

Layoffs spread in tech sector but N.C. continues to add jobs – here’s the latest

The decline comes even as job openings across the United States outnumber job seekers.

As CNN reported, “Job openings totaled 10.7 million, up from a revised 10.3 million in August” according to new Bureau of Labor Statistics data .

What’s that mean?

“There were roughly 1.9 open positions for every person looking for work in September — up from 1.7 in August,” CNN noted. “That ratio has gained importance as the Fed tries to bring down stubbornly high inflation. When jobs are plentiful and workers scarce, employees have leverage to ask for a higher wage — which puts upward pressure on inflation.”

The latest analysis of regional data shows that the number of job openings decreased from last week on 15 of the 20 job board searches tracked by WRAL TechWire, with the aggregate total falling by more than 6,650 job postings, or a drop of nearly 2% week-over-week.

There are now 338,350 job openings in the Triangle, at the time the data was compiled for the WRAL TechWire Jobs Report. That’s a stark reversal from two weeks ago, when job openings ticked upwards significantly and totaled more than 350,000 openings after experiencing a sharp drop in the preceding weeks.

For example, at the beginning of November, there were only 328,275 postings across all 20 job board searches, the lowest total aggregate since WRAL TechWire began to track this metric in June 2022.

And, overall, the total aggregate number of job openings in the Triangle has fallen month-over-month, with a decrease of nearly 4,500 job openings, or 1.31% compared to a month ago.

Further, 14 of the 20 job boards tracked in the report show a month-over-month decrease in the number of job openings.

However, as the N.C. Technology Association reported on Monday, the number of open jobs in the state’s tech sector climbed nearly to a new record. And many of those jobs are in the Triangle.

High-tech job openings in NC climb to new high, surge in Triangle

A holiday trend?

Still, prior data from the WRAL TechWire Jobs Report shows that there has been a decrease ahead of widely-celebrated U.S. holidays, with low marks in aggregate job postings the week prior to Independence Day and the week prior to Labor Day, earlier this year.

For example, the week of June 27 saw a low mark of 330,151 job openings and the week of August 29 saw 334,782 openings across all job boards tracked by the WRAL TechWire Jobs Report.

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.

Who’s hiring in Triangle? Even firms making layoffs; some are scooping up laid-off talent

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.

Methodology on measuring Triangle job market

Editor's Notes: The month-over-month totals are compared to our October 24 jobs 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 (164 startup jobs near Research Triangle Park)
LinkedIn (10,679 job openings that include "startup" in the Triangle region, up by 2,031 jobs since last week, or nearly 23.5%)
Indeed (197 startup jobs in/near RTP)
AngelList, which is now known as wellfound: (22 job openings in Raleigh, 4 in Durham and 65 total across North Carolina)
Durham-based job site InHerSight also lists jobs at local startups among other job postings (216 openings this week, down 9 roles form 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 63 roles close to Raleigh and another 58 roles, some of which overlap, close to Durham.

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 133 jobs, up 6 openings from 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.

Leadership Triangle

Leadership Triangle's job board is full of job opportunities, including from small, mid-size, and large employers. The site lists 1,369 job openings at 30 companies (down from 1,520 openings 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 167 job openings as of Monday, down 10 roles 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. NC TECH released the September IT Jobs Report last week, 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 66 positions.

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 2,446. That's up 286 job openings compared to a week ago but remains down 239 open positions compared to 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 7,988 active job listings. Last week, there were 7,923 job openings. Compared to a month ago, there are now 939 more job openings.

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.

Where are the jobs in the Triangle?

Amazon: 11 job openings in the Triangle, though some roles can be done remotely, according to the company's career page. That's down from 54 openings from a month ago, with the company announcing last week that it would pause hiring new corporate roles until 2023 and reported layoffs at the company. In addition, Amazon is closing multiple North Carolina facilities, though a company spokesperson told WRAL TechWire that Amazon was not laying off any workers as those facilities close. Workers at an Amazon facility in Garner continue efforts to unionize including speaking with other Amazon workers in the state.
Apple (corporate roles): 40 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company's career page, down 19 roles from a month ago. The company will put in place a hiring freeze for corporate roles, WRAL TechWire reported.
Bandwidth: 34 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company's career page. The company will require its employees to work in-person five days per week, WRAL TechWire reported earlier this year.
BASF: 33 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company's career page
BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina: 48job openings in the Triangle, according to the company's career page
BD: 21 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company's career page
Cisco: 184 job openings in Research Triangle Park, according to the company's career page, even as the company announced it would make job cuts last week
Citrix: Citrix is updating their job portal website, according to the company. No data was available for this week, but there were 23 job openings in Raleigh at the end of October, according to a prior WRAL TechWire Jobs Report.
Credit Suisse: 64 job openings in the Triangle, same as last week
Duke Energy: 6 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company's career page, same as last week
Eaton: 81 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.
Eli Lilly: 35 job openings in Research Triangle Park, according to the company's career page
Fidelity Investments: 612 job openings in Durham, according to the company's career page. That's down 23 roles compared to a week ago but is 40 openings higher than a month ago. The financial firm continues to hire, WRAL TechWire reported last week.
FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies: 33 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company's career page
Google: 255 job openings in Durham, according to the company's career page, down from 313 openings two weeks ago. 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. The company is hiring the same number of positions as it was a month ago.
Grifols: 132 job openings in North Carolina, including in Durham and Clayton, according to the company's career page.
GlaxoSmithKline: 184 job openings in Durham, according to the company's career page, 77 more openings than last week and 71 more than a month ago.
IBM: 5 job openings in RTP, according to the company's career page. The company said it would continue to hire in August.
IQVIA: 327 job openings in RTP, according to the company's career page (down 32 openings compared to a month ago)
Kyndryl: 49 job openings in RTP, according to the company's career page, down 15 jobs from a week ago
Labcorp: 275 job openings in Burlington, N.C., according to the company's career page, a decrease of 17 job openings from a week ago
Lenovo: 167 job openings in Morrisville, according to the company's career page, down 15 openings compared to last week.
MetLife: 95 job openings in Cary, according to the company's career page. MetLife told WRAL TechWire recently that it planned to hire 400 workers by New Year's Day.
Merck: 8 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company's career page
Microsoft: 25 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company's career page, which is up a dozen roles from a week ago. The company confirmed last month that it planned to make job cuts, with some 1,000 workers affected.
NetApp: 85 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company's career page
Novo Nordisk: 172 jobs in the Triangle, according to the company's career page. And even more jobs could be coming to the Novo Nordisk location in Johnston County, WRAL TechWire reported in October.
Novartis: 7 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company's career page. The company is closing a Wilson plant.
Pendo: 8 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: 85 job openings in North Carolina, according to the company's career page, down 9 open jobs from last week
Red Hat: 36 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company's career page, an increase of 8 openings from a week ago. Red Hat is owned by IBM and had a leadership change earlier this year.
RTI International: 126 job openings in Durham, according to the company's career page, same as last week
SAS: 68 job openings in Cary, according to the company's career page, down 59 openings from a month ago. Some of the available roles are remote-based positions.
Science 37: 3 job openings that could be based in Raleigh, though some other roles are remote positions. The company announced it would make job cuts earlier this month.
Sensus (Xylem): 43 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company's career page
Spectrum: 36 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company's career page
Syneos Health: 9 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company's career page
Toshiba Global Commerce: 99 openings in Durham, according to the company's career page
Wolfspeed: 268 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: 63 job openings in North Carolina, according to the company's careers page