Lynne Sladky/Associated Press
Come 2025, you might find it's a tad easier to change jobs.
That would be welcome news for many. While layoffs and the overall US unemployment rate remain low, some employees in industries like tech have felt stuck in their roles because of tepid hiring.
Labor market experts and executives who oversee corporate recruitment told Business Insider that more people could switch roles next year. One possible sign: Job postings for recruiters are up in some industries.
Hiring recruiters tends to signal an increase in broader hiring about three months later, Lisa Simon, the chief economist at Revelio Labs, which examines employment data, told BI.
Simon said demand isn't uniformly higher, though, in some areas, it's up sharply. Take electronics manufacturing. Job recruitment postings in that sector have jumped about 76% from the first quarter of 2024, according to data from Revelio Labs and Appcast, which provides recruitment advertising services.
Recruiter postings for areas like pharmaceuticals as well as hospitality and tourism management are up about 45% from early 2024.
"It could well be that this is real," Simon said, referring to the demand for recruiters indicating a broader economic lift.
As always, unforeseen economic obstacles could emerge. It also remains unclear whether proposals to increase tariffs or cut the federal workforce might alter some employers' plans.
Nevertheless, there's room for optimism, according to Sean Barry, VP of talent acquisition at Allstate. He told BI that he expects the company will hire between 15,000 and 16,000 workers in 2025, up from an estimated 14,000 this year. The insurance giant has about 55,000 workers.
"I personally think the entire market is going to experience an uptick," Barry said, referring to overall hiring in the US in 2025.
If hiring does heat up in 2025, it might take time for everyone hunting for a job to see the effects, Daniel Zhao, the lead economist at Glassdoor, told BI.
He said that because many workers have had to settle for lower-paying or lower-seniority positions in recent years, they might be the first to seek better roles.
"Those experienced workers will be prime targets to climb the career ladder," Zhao said.
It would likely then take longer, he said, for entry-level workers and new grads to see the benefits of a stronger job market as they might need to wait for more experienced peers to create vacancies.
Regardless, increased movement could give a much-needed boost to worker sentiment, Zhao said.
"Workers are feeling stuck right now," he said, "creating an epidemic of employee disengagement."
If the job market doesn't strengthen as hoped, Zhao said some workers' frustrations over their 9-to-5 could rise.
Yet "if the job market heats up, then we'll likely see a wave of turnover as workers vote with their feet," Zhao said.
Michelle Volberg, a longtime recruiter who founded Twill, a venture-backed startup that pays tech workers to recommend peers for key jobs, told BI in early November that she's witnessed more demand from employers for 2025.
"We're seeing a pretty healthy number of roles planning to be posted in January, probably more than we even expected," Volberg said. She added that she'd seen an "upward trend" in the past year.
Even if the job market does pick up, Simon, from Revelio Labs, said it won't be like the pandemic-era boom when companies like the tech giants scooped up workers.
"We're done with that level of hiring," she said.
Yet even without a Great Resignation Redux, finding the right workers could remain challenging for some.
Christina Schelling, SVP and chief talent and diversity officer at Verizon, told BI that she expects the competition for workers to remain high.
Verizon has some 105,000 employees and typically fills about 20,000 jobs a year through a mix of internal and external candidates. She expects that will continue.
"I don't think that it's going to be any easier to get the best of the best to work here," Schelling said.
Tanya Moore, chief people officer at the consulting firm West Monroe, told BI that reductions in promotions and job changes for many US desk workers have hurt morale.
Over the summer, she grew concerned that some of the firm's employees were not feeling recognized or rewarded for their work.
Based on conversations with West Monroe employees and others in the industry, Moore said many consultants are feeling "restless and grumpy."
So, Moore and several colleagues went to the company's board. Moore shared her concern that if the job market heats up in 2025, as she expects, key employees could be tempted to leave.
The board listened. In October, to help stave off an exodus and to "make workers feel valued," Moore said, the company paid a bonus to the top 18% of its performers. The payouts were based on financial criteria that she said were "clear and hard to argue with."
The payments were in addition to the annual bonuses that a wider pool of employees are eligible for.
Moore expects the consulting business — and the broader economy — will see "moderate" growth in 2025 and stepped-up growth in 2026. That could lead to another "big reshuffle," she said.
Already, she said, West Monroe has seen a slight uptick in attrition.
"As the economy settles and people get more confident, I think we're going to see a whole other Great Resignation," Moore said.
