RALEIGH – Many Triangle companies remain desperate to source and recruit talented workers to join their companies, even as layoffs at tech companies like Amazon and Salesforce are occurring while activity related to layoffs is surging at LinkedIn.

“As we’ve entered 2023, we’ve heard from many companies that are looking to find new ways to source talent and fill their skills gaps,” said Jessica Mitsch Homes, founder and CEO of Momentum Learning.  “While we’ve seen news of tech layoffs at major companies, the job market in the Triangle and North Carolina remains strong and there is a lot of opportunity here for both tech workers and companies.”

How strong?  Well, take this as an example: Of the 50 firms that WRAL TechWire now tracks for the weekly WRAL TechWire Jobs Report, 18 are looking for more workers now than they were a month ago.

Job openings jumped especially at Thermo Fisher Scientific by more than 60% (up 28) and  Eli Lilly, also a 60% jump (24).

But every single company tracked in the WRAL TechWire Jobs Report is hiring at least one position, the latest report found.

“Candidates still have a lot of choices and the job market is very much still favoring potential job seekers, especially those with technical skill sets that have historically and continue to be in high demand,” said Mitsch Homes.

Who is hiring?

The latest data show that these 50 employers are currently hiring for 3,454 open positions.  That’s a drop of 8.6% compared to the number of job openings a month ago, but a slight increase from last week’s report.

“Rather than feeling concerned, we feel optimistic that this current climate will give individuals a unique opportunity to expand their skillsets and force companies to look at new ways to curate talent,” said Homes.

Overall, job advertisements have dropped in the region, falling to below 300,000 aggregate openings across the 20 job boards tracked by WRAL TechWire for the weekly report.  Still, there are more job openings now than there were a year ago, and the region’s startup economy was described as strong last week by serial entrepreneur and investor Scot Wingo.