Employers are feeling the strain of a tight labour market as recruiters use every available tool to find proper candidates. One of those tools is Indeed’s resume database, which has over 45 million resumes in the US. We compare the previous two years of search data in our resume database to find the fastest-growing employer search terms. Not surprisingly, tech-related skills attract strong employer interest and feature heavily on our list.

Growing need for roles of all skill levels
A table titled “Growing need for roles of all skill levels,” showing the share of all employer searches, year-over-year percentage change. A few of the top search terms include: software engineer (674% change), buyer planner (408% change), editor (265% change), developer (216% change), and graphic artist (210% change). Captions added post publication.

Some of the fastest-growing search terms are for in-demand roles that may be even more difficult to fill in a tightening labour market. These include ‘software engineer,’  ‘developer,’ and  ‘Amazon Web Services certified architect.’ High-skill tech talent has been in demand for years, and the fact that employer interest in these roles is still growing is a testament to their importance. Meanwhile, growing demand for truck drivers is evident in our list, as ‘class a cdl/driver’ clocks in at number seven.

The rest of the top ten fastest-growing employer search terms is rounded out with both higher-skilled roles, such as ‘graphic artist’ and ‘buyer planner,’ as well as entry-level roles like ‘call center representative’ and ‘administrative support.’  The assortment of jobs in this list illustrates the diverse opportunities for job seekers of all types in a tight labour market. Unemployment is at its lowest rate in nearly two decades and there is just one unemployed worker for every available job, down from a high of six unemployed workers per opening during the thick of the Great Recession.

However, it is important to note that not all tech skills are in equally high demand. Some of the terms that showed the lowest amount of year-over-year growth were ‘sql developer,’ ‘SAS,’ and ‘scrum master.’


Methodology

This analysis is based upon search data from employers using Indeed’s resume search feature. We used two years of data, from March 2016 to March 2018. All search volumes were measured as a share of total traffic to account for changes to the Indeed site over time. To find the fastest growing search terms, we examined year-over-year growth for search terms from the first to the second year of our time frame. We then culled the list of our fastest growing search terms to focus only on job titles and skills.