ICIMS Insights June Workforce Report: Where Tech Talent Is Going Now

Why demand is rising faster than your hiring engine 

In the ICIMS Insights June Workforce Report, employers in the U.S. and EMEA are clearly signaling “go” on growth, but their hiring engines are not keeping pace with that ambition. Across both regions, ICIMS data for May activity points to the same core problem: a growing gap between headcount plans and the ability to find candidates with the skills they are looking for. 

Over the last three months in the U.S., job openings have consistently trended above baseline, with May coming in 9% higher year-over-year. Except for a brief dip in February, employers have steadily added more open roles which signals increased business demand and an appetite to grow headcount. Hiring is not matching that level of demand. After a sharp decline in November 2025, hiring has only managed to rise above baseline in April and May and even then by just 1%. 

That gap is amplified by a sustained drop in candidate applications. Application volume in the United States is now down 11% year-over-year, and it extends a decline that began in February. This trend is leaving talent acquisition teams with fewer applicants per requisition just as the business leans harder on them, and a growing need to invest in smarter sourcing, faster conversion and stronger candidate communication in order to pull ahead. 

What the EMEA funnel tells us about execution 

The EMEA story looks different on the surface, but it points to the same underlying issue of more demand, more complexity and less conversion. Over the past year, openings across EMEA increased by approximately 17% year-over-year, which signals stronger underlying talent demand and more requisitions moving into the market. That rise in requisition volume sets the context for everything else in the funnel. 

Application volume did grow although far more modestly at a roughly 4% increase year-over-year. That slower growth means organizations are creating more roles than the available pool of candidates is keeping up with, which results in fewer applicants per open role and tougher competition for the right skills. Despite this elevated demand and slightly higher application volume, hiring in EMEA finished 7% below the May 2025 baseline. The data points to a potential execution gap where more roles and more sourcing activity are not translating into more hiring outcomes. 

For talent acquisition leaders and CXOs, that is an important signal. You can no longer assume that more postings, more channels and more volume will solve for demand. The constraint is shifting from awareness to conversion, which is how effectively you move the candidates you do attract through your process and into roles. 

Tech hiring is being reshuffled across industries 

The ICIMS Insights June Workforce Report provides a data driven look at tech talent. The headlines have reported increased volumes of layoffs from tech giants, but the ICIMS data shows tech hiring is on the move, just not necessarily toward traditional tech employers. When you look at tech roles across the broader market, healthcare and manufacturing are stepping up their hiring while finance is pulling back. 

Healthcare has increased tech hiring by 8% year-over-year. This makes sense as healthcare organizations are scaling digital transformation at speed from AI enabled diagnostics to modernized patient data systems and workforce optimization, and they need experienced technologists who can build secure, compliant and scalable solutions in high stakes environments. This demand is supported by federal projections as the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects about 1.9 million healthcare job openings per year through 2034 and healthcare occupations are projected to grow much faster than the average for all occupations. 

Manufacturing is leaning into automation and smart factory investments, increasing hiring in tech by 4%. As production becomes more software-driven, employers are hiring engineers and technical talent who can connect AI robotics and real-time data systems to improve efficiency and resilience across operations.  

Finance is moving in the opposite direction, showing a 22% decline in tech hiring year-over-year. Ongoing cost pressure, regulatory complexity and a shift toward efficiency over expansion have slowed tech hiring as firms focus on optimizing existing systems instead of building new ones, which reduces the need for net new talent. The market result is a redistribution of tech talent across industries driven by where AI and digital investments are growing fastest. 

Where to go next 

The talent market is not cooling. It is reorganizing around new patterns of demand, especially for tech skills, in non-tech industries and in sectors like healthcare and manufacturing that are leaning into AI and automation. In that environment, talent acquisition leaders and CXOs who consistently close the execution gap between openings, applications and hires will be the ones who turn headcount plans into actual capability on the ground. 

To dig into the latest numbers, the hottest job titles and generational views on AI in recruiting, explore the ICIMS Insights June Workforce Report, powered by proprietary data from millions of candidates and employers around the world.