RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Good news for those seeking work – or looking for new roles:  The Triangle jobs market continues to show signs of strength, despite some short-term volatility in the number of available postings and that layoffs continue to increase. 

The most recent jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the employment situation in the United States showed that the economy is back to pre-pandemic employment levels, by that measure. 

Still, one report that tracks household employment, the U.S. economy has not yet reached pre-pandemic levels, noted Dr. Michael Walden, a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor Emeritus at North Carolina State University and a regular contributor to WRAL TechWire, on Monday. 

“The downward trend in the household survey of jobs is concerning,” said Walden.

But what’s also concerning, said Dr. Gerald Cohen, chief economist at the Kenan Institute, is the continued trend of lower labor force participation.  

“A big concern,” noted Cohen on Monday, adding that while part of this shift is demographic in nature, another part of it is that 548,000 people are still reporting that they are not looking for work, thereby out of the labor force, due to concerns about COVID-19.  

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Outlook for North Carolina

Based on the two federal studies, that data means that the about 7.6 million Americans who hold multiple jobs play a role in the differences between the surveys, explained Cohen. 

But in North Carolina there are good signs.

Payroll jobs are 134,000 above their pre-COVID peaks, said Cohen.  

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Further, unlike the national environment, the household employment and labor force figures are also above pre-COVID peaks in North Carolina, said Cohen, by 89,000 and 72,000 respectively.  

“For North Carolina, both surveys have been trending upward, and the July numbers are higher than pre-pandemic for both surveys,” Walden said. 

And in the Triangle, there are still tens of thousands of open jobs, with companies searching for talent, and continuing to plan for further growth.  MetLife, for instance, plans to hire as many as 400 workers by the end of the year, as reported by WRAL TechWire last week. 

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What’s happening with job openings

While job openings dropped on 60% of the job boards tracked weekly by WRAL TechWire from last week, only 40% of the job boards are showing a decrease from the prior month.

Put another way, of the 20 job boards that are included in WRAL TechWire’s weekly analysis, job openings have increased on 12 of them since this time last month. 

That’s in part led by strength and resilience in life science positions, but the state’s technology companies continue to hire as well, despite increasing data suggesting that for many newer companies, layoffs at tech startups are becoming more of a possibility, a concern, or an actuality. 

Job openings abound at the Triangle’s leading technology employers. And hiring in the state continues to be strong, Brooks Raiford, the president and CEO of NC TECH, told WRAL TechWire on Monday.

Triangle jobs market remains strong; report says life science firms keep hiring

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.

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The latest on openings for Triangle jobs

Every week, we track the total number of Triangle-area positions posted on major job websites.  Here is the latest data, as of 12 PM on Monday, August 8.  We use the shorthand abbreviation “MoM” for month-over-month and “YTD” for year-to-date in our report.  This week’s report 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: 47,911 (⇑+2,894 or 6.43% MoM; ⇑+5,380YTD)
      • Raleigh: 38,739 (⇑+23,466 or 153.64% MoM; ⇑+14,795 YTD)
    • Durham County: 12,781 (⇑+873 or 7.33% MoM; ⇑+3,027 YTD)
    • Johnston County: 3,265 (⇑+473 or 16.94% MoM; ⇑+36 YTD)*
  • Dice.com (using the 5-mile radius filter):
    • Raleigh: 18,473 (⇓-215  or 1.15% MoM; ⇑+3,102 YTD)
    • Durham: 17,729 (⇓-193 or 1.08% MoM; ⇑+2,549 YTD)
    • Chapel Hill: 17,445 (⇓-184 or 1.04% MoM; ⇑+2,456 YTD)
  • Glassdoor: 41,637 jobs across the Research Triangle Park area (⇑+88 or 0.21% MoM; ⇑+6,789 YTD)
  • Indeed:
    • Raleigh: 22,785 (⇑+547 or 2.46% MoM; ⇑+6,377 YTD)
    • Durham: 12,963 (⇓-92 or -0.7% MoM; ⇑+2,926 YTD)
    • Chapel Hill: 4,065 (⇑+224 or 5.31% MoM; ⇑+555 YTD)
    • Johnston County: 3,682 (⇑+162 or 4.60% MoM; ⇑+2,705 YTD)
  • LinkedIn (using the “exact location” and “0-miles” filters):
    • Raleigh: 26,118 (⇓-2,117 or -7.5% MoM;⇓-747 YTD)
    • Durham: 12,547 (⇑+54 or 0.43% MoM; ⇓-1,940 YTD)
    • Chapel Hill: 3,506 (⇑+215 or 6.53% MoM; ⇑+1,076 YTD)
    • Johnston County: 2,000**
  • ZipRecruiter (5-mile filter):
    • Raleigh: 39,637(⇓-2,554 or -6.05% MoM; ⇑+6,415 YTD)
    • Durham:  17,438 (⇓-543 or -3.02% MoM; ⇑+2,580 YTD)
    • Chapel Hill: 972 (⇑+13 or 1.36% MoM; ⇓-2,672 YTD)
    • Johnston County: 400 ( ⇑+13 or 3.36% MoM; ⇑+21 YTD)*

Inside the Triangle’s latest job opening data: What boards are showing and who’s hiring

Methodology

Editor’s Notes: The month-over-month totals are compared to our July 12 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.  As such, we are not able to verify whether comparing prior data is a like-to-like comparison, so we’ve elected to omit that comparison from this report.  *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. 

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Startup Jobs Report

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

  • SimplyHired (189 startup jobs near Research Triangle Park, ⇓-26 or -12.09% MoM; ⇓-46 YTD)
  • LinkedIn (8,552 job openings that include “startup” in the Triangle region, ⇓-316 or -3.58% MoM; ⇑+36 YTD),
  • Indeed (254 startup jobs in/near RTP, ⇓-24 or -8.63% MoM; ⇓-69 YTD)
  • AngelList (50 job openings in Raleigh, 16 in Durham and 104total across North Carolina)
  • Durham-based job site InHerSight also lists jobs at local startups among other job postings (146 this week this week within 25 miles of Raleigh, down from 146 last week, though up from 91 two weeks 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 133 roles close to Raleigh (up from 113 last week) and another 92 roles, some of which overlap, close to Durham (up from 76 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 155 jobs at 55 companies.

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 1,498 job openings (down from 1,581 job openings the prior week) at 30 companies including Citrix, Google, El Centro Hispano, Nugget, Habitat for Humanity of Durham, Forward Cities, Bland Landscaping, Truist, PNC, Burt’s Bees, and North Carolina Central University. 

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 179 job openings as of Monday, down from 183 openings last week and down from 229 listings two weeks ago, despite strong signs that life science hiring continues to increase nationally and in the Triangle.  (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 55 positions as of Monday afternoon, down from 58 in last week’s report.

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 3,054 job openings.  That’s down from 3,178 openings last week and 3,226 openings two weeks 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 9,084 job openings on Monday.  That’s up from last week, when there were 8,825 active openings, but down by 6.45% from a month ago, when there were 9,710 openings on the website.

Still, of the current job openings, 7,295 are technology jobs, 1,040 are advanced manufacturing positions, 306 are in cleantech and 443 are in life sciences roles.

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.

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Top Tech Firms Looking to Fill Triangle Jobs

Job openings abound at the Triangle’s leading technology employers. Here’s how many are available as of Sunday afternoon:

  • Amazon: 105 job openings in the Triangle, though some roles can be done remotely, according to the company’s career page
  • *Apple (corporate roles): 97 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
  • Bandwidth: 38 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page
  • *Cisco: 223 job openings in Research Triangle Park, according to the company’s career page
  • *Citrix: 29 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page
  • *Eli Lilly: 42 job openings in Research Triangle Park, according to the company’s career page
  • Fidelity Investments: 570 job openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page
  • *FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies: 77 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
  • *Google: 371 jobs openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page, and 13 with Google Fiber
  • IBM: 1 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 earlier this month.
  • *IQVIA: 461 job openings in RTP, according to the company’s career page
  • Kyndryl: 131 job openings in RTP, according to the company’s career page, up from 113 openings a week ago. 
  • *Labcorp: 255, job openings in Burlington (headquarters), according to the company’s career page
  • Lenovo: 328 job openings in Morrisville, according to the company’s career page
  • MetLife: 138 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: 37 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page
  • *NetApp: 183 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
  • *Novo Nordisk: 193 jobs in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
  • *Novartis: 6 job openings in the Triangle, according to the company’s career page
  • Pendo: 5 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page
  • Red Hat: 29 job openings in Raleigh, according to the company’s career page, up from 9 openings last week.  Red Hat is owned by IBM.
  • RTI International: 148 job openings in Durham, according to the company’s career page
  • SAS: 152job openings in Cary, according to the company’s career page

*Editor’s Note: These companies are new in this week’s edition of the WRAL TechWire Jobs Report and will continue to be tracked moving forward.

 

Upcoming Job Fairs/Career Events

Here’s our latest roundup of upcoming job fairs and other 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.

NC TECH Virtual Job Expo

Other resources to find Triangle jobs

If you’re a student looking for an internship or entry-level position at a local company or organization, your university has resources to help you get started. Quick links below:

For Johnston County job seekers: The recently launched JoCo Careers website helps job seekers find companies hiring in Johnston County. (More TechWire coverage here.) https://wraltechwire.com/2022/01/10/johnston-county-launches-new-jobs-platform-to-connect-workers-to-local-jobs/

Twitter Accounts to Follow for Triangle Jobs

Here are some locally run Twitter accounts that regularly share job openings in the Triangle:

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