GrayData: Espresso

For several years now, electronic sports, or Esports, has increased in popularity. The 2019 championship for the game “League of Legends,” hosted in South Korea, garnered more viewers than the Super Bowl. It was played in front of 23,000 in-person fans and over 100 million online, compared to the Super Bowl’s 65,000 in-person and 98 million TV viewers. The money is real: the event was backed by major sponsors, such as Mastercard and Nike, over $2.5 million in prize money was awarded, and a collaborative collection with Louis Vuitton was released. The sector was worth $865 million in 2018 and is now worth over $1.3 billion. Esports has become something of a cultural zeitgeist for today’s youth, and higher education institutions are scrambling to address the market potential for academic programs.

Job Skills and the Rebound

The decline in current job postings has slowed significantly – from a 23% drop in March to a 4% decline in May. However, these averages mask wide variations by skill level and state.

Nationwide, lower-skill jobs, those not requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher, declined just 1%, led by increases in retail and service positions. For example, job postings for Customer Service Associates jumped from 89 in April to 3,960 in May. Similarly, postings for Pharmacy Technicians increased 240% from 698 to 2,374.

2020 has not been a good year for internships. As signs of coronavirus began to show in February, job postings for interns dropped by half. In April, they dropped again, by 70%.

Job Postings with “Intern” In Job Title by Month

In a market where job postings appeared to be declining across the board, nursing fields once stood out as an exception to the rule. Overall, job postings in the U.S. dropped 33% between February and April while nursing job postings fell only 7%. In May, there was an abrupt change: the decline in the overall job market slowed to 4% but nursing fell 18%.