Worries are plentiful, but economists like Kory Kantenga remain grounded.
The latest: LinkedIn’s head of economics for the Americas sat down with me on March jobs report day and said there’s “not a lot that unnerves me at this point in my life” when I asked him what data point or headline would make him freak out.
“What would likely set alarm bells for me is if we really saw a significant rise in the unemployment rate within a few months. And by significant, I don’t mean 5%. I mean 8%, 10%,” Kantenga told me.
Whether that’s comforting to Americans worried about the effects of the Iran war and the threat posed by AI to jobs is another matter. But sharing perspectives like his more broadly will hopefully help ease some anxiety.
“I would say generally don't freak out. You can't solve problems when you're in a state of panic. So it's always good to just try to have a sober look at things, look at all of your options, weigh them and figure out what your next steps are. And the next step you take, if you're struggling with your career today, if you're struggling with getting your business off the ground, the steps you take doesn’t have to be big. You just need them to take you in the right direction.”
For grads specifically, Kantenga sees clear clues on where jobs are growing based on LinkedIn data out today.
“There is so much momentum in the AI economy right now and not just for pure AI roles, but sometimes AI enabled roles. Think about data annotators, the folks who do the labeling to help train the models. We've seen over the last few years, 300,000 jobs created for those roles alone,” he said.
Most surprising? Demand for entry-level sales is strongest.
“Because there's so much focus on efficiency and finding revenue that you would think that there would be a big skewness towards experienced sales folks.”
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According to LinkedIn, these are the top 10 fastest-growing job titles for career starters:
Generative AI Engineer
Marketing Coordinator
Recruitment Assistant
Legal Specialist
Human Resources Operations Specialist
Business Development Representative
Partnerships Associate
Machine Learning Engineer
Loan Officer
Purchasing Coordinator
The top 5 fastest-growing industries for career starters:
Technology, Information and Media
Real Estate
Financial Services
Utilities
Construction
And the top 10 fastest-growing functions for career starters:
Sales
Finance
Business Development
Real Estate
Customer Success and Support
Purchasing
Marketing
Product Management
Information Technology
Consulting
We covered a lot more in our interview — transcript below:
Why the jobs report headline number is the wrong thing to watch
Whether workers are being replaced right now by AI
Why young women are leaving the workforce
The hidden story behind who's actually getting hired right now
What LinkedIn's hiring rate is signaling about where the economy is headed
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