GrayData: Espresso

The Covid-19 pandemic has created logistical nightmares, many of which affected product flow and threw supply chain management into crisis. The pandemic exposed myriad vulnerabilities in supply chains. Companies saw their products trapped upstream due to breakdowns in the chain. Some products were unavailable, others no longer in demand at all. Food spoiled in warehouses and trucks, while grocery store shelves were bare, and warehouses were empty or unsafe. Many companies found themselves unable to handle increased demand for products, necessity for new packaging, safety issues, and so on.

It will come as no surprise that job postings saw a significant decrease in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, with postings falling below 800k from an earlier high of around 1.3mm.  What may be surprising, however, is the significant increase in job postings for the month of October 2020.  Even with the pandemic seeing new highs in a majority of states, October saw job postings top 1.8mm, which is more than the final two months of 2019 combined.

Graydata, Gray’s job postings database shows that, since reaching a high in January, job postings have declined for four straight months by a total of 43%. April through June, job postings were relatively flat. In July, job postings turned the corner. Job postings rose from 698,628 in June to 770,497 in July,  an increase of 71,869 or 10%.

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%.