Job Seeker Trends

CompTIA’s Job Seeker Trends provides insights into the desired career pathways of job seekers and the strategies they use to advance to the next stage of their career journey. This wave of research was conducted during June-July 2024. A total of 1,000 U.S. job seekers and 1,000 U.S. non-job seekers participated in the study for a total of 2,000 respondents.

Across the U.S. labor market, approximately 27% – representing nearly 45 million workers, engaged in some type of job seeking activity during the past 90 days. This rate remains consistent with prior waves of the research. Many job seekers considered opportunities in the same field where they currently work and in different fields that will entail a career change.

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Despite the ups and down of news headlines, job seekers remain generally optimistic about employment prospects. There was a slight pullback in certain career pursuits, but all things considered, the data suggests job seekers believe the labor market continues to provide employment opportunities.

Job seeker consideration across career fields was roughly in line with the previous iteration of this study. Technology career consideration was unchanged and remains a top 4 selection among job seekers.

For transitions into new careers, job seekers continue to rate industry-recognized certification as the most viable stepping-stone to improve their prospects without a 4-year degree. The data confirms there remains much work to do in addressing the confidence gap and reducing real and perceived barriers to pursuing a career in technology.

Job seekers across the demographic spectrum rate the critical important of digital skills and career readiness in today’s labor market. The net 83% rating digital skills as important to any career pursuit reflects the past and future phases of the digital transformation of economies around the world.

Of note, artificial intelligence (AI) fundamentals quickly made its way onto the list of top perceived digital skills. While all the fundamental skills are interconnected, whereby one builds on another to achieve outcomes in the workplace, AI’s emergence as a fundamental skill confirms the pervasive interest across employers and workers.

The Skills Intent segment represents the segment of the market placing the highest priority on skills development to advance in their career and/or to avoid falling behind with theirs skills toolkit.

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