Talroo's Frontline Worker Index
Frontline Worker Index
September 2024 Summary: A Turning Point in Supply, Demand, and Workforce Shifts
The frontline labor market is experiencing pivotal changes this month, with notable shifts in wages, job postings, and the balance between remote, part-time, and full-time work.
• Supply & Demand: For the first time in five months, resume postings surged while job postings declined.
• Wages & Pay: Wages continue to rise, especially in healthcare, with significant increases in hourly pay and sign-on bonuses.
• Schedules, Hours, & Remote Work: Full-time roles are growing, while part-time opportunities are sharply declining, indicating a preference for stable, full-time staffing. Remote work is down overall, but industries like hospitality and retail are seeing a marked increase in remote roles.
Frontline Worker Index Explorer
To explore Talroo’s data and search findings for recruiting and hiring, use the Industry Explorer below. You can view nationwide trends or focus on specific states. Additionally, you can narrow your search by selecting industries or specific job titles. Happy searching!
Frontline Worker Trends: Retention Challenges and Holiday Preparations
As 2024 draws to a close, two critical trends are shaping the frontline workforce landscape: the ongoing struggle to retain healthcare workers in the face of high turnover, and the preparations that industries like retail and hospitality are making for the fast-approaching holiday season. These trends not only underscore the challenges of maintaining a stable workforce in essential sectors but also reflect the intensifying competition for seasonal employees.
Retention in the Healthcare Sector
The healthcare industry continues to grapple with significant turnover, especially among nurses and other frontline professionals. With the demand for healthcare services rising steadily, organizations are focusing their retention efforts on compensation, career development, and mental health support to keep their workforce intact.
Tackling Turnover with Competitive Wages
- Wage increases have become a key strategy for retention, particularly as the cost of replacing healthcare workers remains steep—hospitals and clinics spend more than $52,000 to replace a single registered nurse.
- Allied Health roles have seen hourly wages rise to $39.17, aligning with a broader trend noted in the Frontline Worker Index, which shows a year-over-year increase of $3.33 in average hourly wages.
Investing in Career Development
- Offering ongoing credentialing and upskilling opportunities helps healthcare workers feel supported and valued in their professional journeys.
- The No Degree Required index continues to decline, suggesting that more positions now require higher education and specialized training. This means that as healthcare roles grow more complex, employers are investing in professional development to ensure workers are adequately qualified.
Addressing Burnout and Mental Health
- To combat burnout, healthcare employers are focusing on flexible schedules, manageable patient loads, and providing mental health resources. These efforts are aimed at reducing turnover and retaining experienced staff.
In healthcare, balancing competitive wages with non-monetary benefits like professional development and mental health support is becoming increasingly vital for retention. As wages rise and the labor market tightens, employers will need to refine their strategies to maintain a qualified, stable workforce.
Gearing Up for the Holiday Season: A Battle for Seasonal Talent
With the holiday season looming, industries like retail, hospitality, and even healthcare are preparing for an influx of demand. Seasonal workers are essential to meet this surge, but attracting and retaining them has never been more challenging. Employers face stiff competition for talent, pushing wages higher and forcing businesses to adopt new strategies to attract workers.
A Growing Need for Seasonal Workers
- Nearly 44% of frontline managers are actively looking to expand their seasonal workforce in preparation for the holiday rush.
- Yet, many are struggling to find qualified candidates, with 61% of managers reporting a decline in the quality of applicants.
Using Higher Wages and Flexibility to Compete
- In response, employers are increasing wages and offering more flexible schedules to make these positions more attractive. This is evident in the recent $2,024 jump in sign-on bonuses, according to the Frontline Worker Index.
- Ensuring a safe work environment is also a top priority, with 77% of managers focusing on workplace safety as a means of retaining seasonal staff and making them feel valued.
Creating a Supportive Environment for Seasonal Retention
- Effective onboarding, along with short-term benefits like weekly bonuses and other incentives, is helping employers keep seasonal workers engaged throughout the peak holiday period.
- Even though the Part-Time index continues to decline, businesses are leaning more into full-time roles to meet the need for experienced, reliable staff.
As competition for seasonal workers intensifies, businesses are relying on higher wages, flexible hours, and a supportive work culture to attract and retain talent. The slight rise in the No Experience Required index reflects that companies are casting a wider net, though finding skilled seasonal workers remains a challenge.
These evolving trends highlight the shifting dynamics in both the healthcare and frontline sectors, as organizations balance the immediate need for seasonal support with long-term workforce stability.
External Sources: Advisory Board, Broadleaf, Axonify
The Frontline Worker Index Data & Findings
The Frontline Worker Index (FWI) provides valuable data on key factors like supply and demand, job titles, wages, work schedules, education and experience requirements, and the benefits frontline workers value most. By analyzing these insights, HR professionals and recruiters can develop more effective strategies for attracting, hiring, and retaining top talent in today’s highly competitive job market.
Supply & Demand
The FWI compares new resumes and new job posts to show the balance between job seeker supply and employer demand.
This month, for the first time in five months, the labor market has flipped, with the Resume Posting index surging by 53 points while the Job Posting index dropped 80 points.
Most impacted industries:
- Supply – Allied Health, Customer Service/Call Center
- Demand – Trucking, Allied Health, and Hospitality/Food Services
Job Titles
Building on the supply and demand insights from the previous graph, this section highlights the demand from frontline job seekers using Talroo-associated job boards and search engines. On the supply side, it examines job postings from employers advertising through Talroo, giving a clear picture of the current job market dynamics.
Supply: Job Seeker Activity
Demand: Employer Job Posts
Over half of the top job searches on Talroo-associated platforms are now centered around how frontline and essential workers want to work, rather than what specific jobs they’re after. This trend is in line with previous index data, though we’re seeing a slight increase in the focus on work conditions. While “Work from Home” is still the most common search, its importance is gradually fading, showing that it’s less of a priority for employers. Companies that clearly communicate what workers are looking for in job descriptions are more likely to attract the best-fit candidates.
Wages & Pay
This dataset shows the average wage and sign-on bonus for jobs listed on the Talroo Ad Platform, and reflects significant regional discrepancies in states like California and New York. These states with strict salary transparency laws may skew the average wage data. In contrast, states with fewer transparency requirements remain underrepresented.
The featured hourly wage has increased by $3.33 year-over-year and $1.71 month-over-month, with healthcare playing a major role. Allied Health positions offer the highest average hourly wage at $39.17, while the overall average excluding healthcare is $18.72, showing modest gains of $0.41 year-over-year and $0.97 month-over-month.
Sign-on bonuses surged $2,024 month-over-month, though the percentage of jobs offering these bonuses has dropped by 1%, signaling that fewer companies are offering bonuses but in larger amounts to attract seasonal workers ahead of the holiday season. Higher wages continue to align with roles requiring more experience and offering less remote flexibility.
Schedules, Hours, & Remote Work
This dataset shows the indexed Work from Home, Part-Time, and Full-Time positions listed by clients on the Talroo Ad Platform. It’s important to note that some positions may be listed as part-time or full-time based on availability or store needs, but this doesn’t necessarily affect the overall numbers.
This month’s data shows significant shifts in part-time, full-time, and remote work trends. The following bullet points summarize these changes and their impact across industries:
Remote Index
- The Remote Work index dropped by 14 points, continuing the "Return to the Office" trend.
- Hospitality and food services are bucking this trend with a 57-point increase year-over-year in remote roles, likely driven by remote customer service and digital ordering systems.
- Retail has seen an even larger jump, with a 208-point increase year-over-year in remote work opportunities, reflecting growth in e-commerce and online support roles.
- In contrast, warehousing and logistics saw a 121-point decrease in remote opportunities, as these roles require physical presence for operations.
Full-Time Index
- The Full-Time Work index is up 8 points, signaling a continued shift towards more stable, full-time positions as employers focus on long-term retention and workforce stability.
Part-Time Index
- The Part-Time Work index saw a significant 40-point drop, suggesting a reduced focus on part-time positions as companies opt for full-time employees to meet operational demands.
These trends illustrate how the workforce landscape is changing post-pandemic, with a clear preference for full-time, in-person work across most sectors. However, industries like hospitality and retail are increasing their remote roles, driven by the rise of digital services and online customer interactions. Meanwhile, sectors like warehousing and logistics remain reliant on on-site workers, with remote work opportunities continuing to decline.
Education & Experience
This index tracks Talroo clients who post jobs that do not require formal education or previous work experience. For example, roles such as warehouse workers or food service employees often fall into this category.
Both the No Degree Required and No Experience Required indices have experienced declines over the past month. The No Degree Required index dropped by 5 points, and the No Experience Required index fell by 1 point year-over-year, though it saw a 2-point rise month-over-month. These trends suggest that more employers are requiring degrees or experience for frontline jobs, possibly indicating a shift towards more stringent hiring criteria as businesses seek candidates with stronger qualifications.
Explore the graphs below to see how these requirements vary by state or industry:
Trends in Education & Experience Over Time
“No Degree Required” Index
“No Experience Required” Index
Benefits
This index tracks the average amount of sign-on bonuses offered and the percentage of companies providing them. Bonuses are a key incentive, especially for frontline workers in industries like retail, healthcare, and logistics.
This month, the average sign-on bonus has surged by $2,024 month-over-month, indicating increased efforts to attract talent as companies prepare for the busy holiday season. However, the percentage of companies offering sign-on bonuses has dropped by 1% month-over-month, suggesting that while fewer employers are offering bonuses, those who tend to offer larger incentives to stand out in the competitive market.
Data Source & Copyright: Talroo, Inc.
The Frontline Worker Index Report: Methodology
Talroo processes an average of 26 million job posts every month, with over 187 million data points adding to this index directly. This extensive dataset is sourced first-party directly from Talroo, reflecting a broad spectrum of industries and geographic locations. Some job posts are comprehensive while others are less detailed; our goal is to encourage companies to be more transparent and intentional with their job posts to improve data quality and utility.
The FWI reflects information from a wide range of sectors, powered by Talroo’s robust dataset and supplemented with Public Insight Data. The report includes detailed graphs and data points, offering a clear view of how different industries are managing tight labor markets and legislative changes for frontline roles. It’s important to note that our data does not reflect all positions equally; some job posts may represent a need for one hire, while others might represent a need for 1,000.
Index numbers are based on January 2022, a point of relative stability in a post-pandemic world for frontline workers.
This set of indices is an invaluable resource for HR professionals, recruiters, business leaders, and investors seeking to understand and navigate the complex landscape of frontline and essential workforces. It provides actionable insights that can help benchmark past and current performance, as well as forecast near-term industry trends and outlook.
View the April 2024 FWI Report here →
View the June 2024 FWI Report here →
View the July 2024 FWI Report here →
View the August 2024 FWI Report here →
