What’s spooking employers? Triangle job openings drop as worries mount, recruiters say

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK — Job openings in the Triangle fell to new lows this week, according to the most recent edition of the WRAL TechWire Jobs Report. The report shows a total of 215,759 active listings (not accounting for post duplications), the lowest since TechWire began tracking this data.

Sarah Finnerty, Senior Client Director at Raleigh-headquartered recruiting firm Kelaca, told TechWire that the “unknown” is frightening employers.

“I am seeing that some companies are holding hiring until the new year, but it seems to be mostly because of the recession, which economists are now saying will happen in early 2024,” said Finnerty.

She said those same concerns are also spooking employees.

“Lately, candidates are unwilling to leave their current role for a new opportunity,” Finnerty told TechWire, “because they’re worried that if they’re ‘last in’ then they’ll be ‘first out.'”

Tricia Lucas, founder of the Triangle-based recruiting and consulting firm Lucas Select, told TechWire that she thinks companies are trying to counterbalance “overhiring” trends from last year—and that they don’t want to carry the cost of the employees “on the books” going into 2024.

“They have to answer to their shareholders, private equity, VCs, etcetera,” said Lucas. “A quick way for them to reduce costs is to eliminate the overhead—employees.”

She also said that fears about a looming recession could be affecting employers—among other concerns.

“The other glaring factor is the uncertainty and instability of the Middle East, which is affecting us globally,” said Lucas.

AI & its threat to 40-hour work week: Will we be paid by the second or the hour?

Which roles are companies still hiring?

Lucas told TechWire that she received over 100 resumes in the last month for front-end Python developers.

“A year ago, everybody wanted this talent,” said Lucas.

But now, she says, employers aren’t hiring for that role—and she thinks part of their hesitation is AI.

One role she says is safe: engineers. She listed engineers—like mechanical engineers, embedded software engineers, architects, and civil engineers—as roles that are still in demand.

The top role, she says, is prompt engineers.

“Prompt engineers don’t need to code,” said Lucas. “They need to understand how to input into AI to get the right output. That is a great market right now.”

Looking at the Job Trends—Numbers from the Oct. 30 jobs report

The exclusive WRAL TechWire Jobs Report aggregates data from 20 location-based job board searches. This week, overall postings (not accounting for post duplications) are down 4.2% from last week and 38.5% from this time last year.

Here’s a closer look at the trend: