Need a job? More than 3,100 are available at 48 top Triangle employers

RALEIGH – “Help wanted” signs remain up at virtually all 50 of the Triangle’s most well-known employers, which is good news for job seekers.

However, there are signs of tightening. Openings have dropped by 9.15% from a month ago, with a 4.5% decline just in the last week alone.

That’s according to the latest WRAL TechWire Jobs Report.

For example, openings are down at Wolfspeed (-53), Fidelity (-50), Google (-39), Toshiba (-37), and Cisco (-32).

However, some employers are hiring more than they were a month ago, including BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina (+27), Eli Lilly (+19), Insomniac Games (+16), and Sensus, which is also known as Xylem (+12).

Eli Lilly, for example, is in the process of planning an expansion in Research Triangle Park, after announcing it would invest an additional $450 million in a facility in Durham County.

“I get as many calls as I always do about roles, about people, about positions,” said Christiaan Heijmen, managing partner at Focus Search Partners, a Vaco Company, in an interview with WRAL TechWire this week.  “I work much more with mid-sized, mid-market companies that are here.”

Openings at startups are surging across Triangle, job postings show

Companies continue to hire

And, said Heijmen, because the Triangle has such an interesting blend of companies which are headquartered here, he is anticipating continued labor market pressures in the months to come.  ““All of my clients are hiring, have plans to hire,” said Heijmen.

Right now, there are still more than 3,100 openings at the 48 firms who remain hiring for open roles (Amazon and Amgen currently have no openings for full-time roles in the Triangle).  And, despite more than 100,000 layoffs announced in January 2023, the U.S. economy added 517,000 jobs last month.

“The economy is not slowing,” said Dr. Gerald Cohen, the chief economist at the Kenan Institute, in a briefing last Friday about the latest jobs data.  “Because if we are creating 517,000 jobs in January, we are very unlikely to go into a recession in February, March, April, or May.”