New iCIMS Data Confirms Employers are Leaning into The Great Pause, as Hires Drop 20% in One Month

The iCIMS Insights December 2024 Workforce Report captures job seeker and employer activity and a yearend roundup of top findings

Holmdel, N.J. [Dec. 10] – iCIMS, the leading provider of talent acquisition technology, today released its year-end report of global workforce trends. The iCIMS Insights December 2024 Workforce Report looks at the latest employer and candidate activity from its hiring platform, including the U.S. and EMEA regions. The report reveals the days of the year candidates submitted the most applications, the most popular days of the week to get a job offer, and the most — and least — popular roles that candidates applied to in 2024.

Global workforce trends drawn from iCIMS’ proprietary platform:

• Overall workforce trends: Activity across all three iCIMS platform indicators decreased in November. Employers’ continued hesitation to commit to hires over the last few months is confirmed by iCIMS data that shows both job openings and hires dropped in November. Last month, they were down 14% and 20%, respectively, from October. While job applications are up 8% from last year, they are down from last month. While this reflects a typical seasonal slowdown, these significant drops in one month are steeper than usual.
• Highest and lowest application days of 2024: The top three days people applied to jobs in 2024 fell in the middle of the summer on July 30, 31 and August 1, followed by several days in January with high application volume. The days with the lowest application volume fell on major holidays, including New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labour Day.
• Best day of the week to get a job: Tuesday came in as the most popular day of the week for job seekers to submit applications in 2024, as well as the most popular day for employers to open jobs and make offers.
• Job seekers’ most wanted and least wanted jobs: Looking at applicants per opening (APO), some of the hottest jobs were computer & mathematical occupations (62 APO), business and financial operations occupations (55 APO) and transportation and material moving occupations (37 APO). On the other end of the spectrum are community and social service occupations (23 APO), healthcare support occupations (21 APO) and healthcare practitioners and technical occupations (13 APO).

EMEA workforce trends drawn from iCIMS’ proprietary platform:

• Overall workforce trends: Activity across all three platform indicators for the EMEA market dipped in November. Though job openings were up 10% from November 2023, there was a 6% dip from October to November 2024. And, despite a 4% dip in activity from the previous month, November’s job application volume was up 36% year over year. Hires were down 9% since this time last year.
• Europe’s best and worst days of the week to get a job: Candidates and employers across Europe might speak different languages, but human behaviour is consistent. Employers in countries across Europe eschewed making job offers at the start of the work week in 2024. The bulk of both candidate and employer activity took place midweek, with Tuesdays and Wednesdays being the most popular days to both look for a job and open and fill a role.
• Application rate by country: Application rate, which measures how often browsing sessions on career sites convert into applications, reveals where candidates are most engaged across some European countries. French job seekers were 2.5 times more likely to apply than their counterparts in Germany. French and Spanish visitors to career sites converted at a higher rate than the EMEA average of 20%.

“Our year-end report is data’s answer to everyone’s favourite annual music roundup, but instead of songs, we’ve got the insights employers need to understand an ever-changing labour market and make better decisions for their businesses,” said Rhea Moss, global head of workforce and customer insights at iCIMS. “Hiring teams and business leaders should use this data to address their recruitment marketing and hiring challenges and inform their strategies for 2025 for better outcomes.”

Download the iCIMS Insights December 2024 Workforce Report for a deeper dive into the latest workforce trends and top findings of the year from surveys of Chief Human Resource Officers, talent acquisition professionals, recruiters and multiple generations of job seekers.

The award-winning iCIMS Insights programme provides essential information for better decision-making. iCIMS proprietary data is based on activity from over 3 million global platform users, more than 200 million applications and over 5.5 million hires annually.