LinkedIn: Demand for remote jobs increases but opportunities are waning

New data revealed that companies are posting fewer remote job positions although the demand for them has increased.

Fully remote job postings reached an all-time high in February 2022 comprising 20% of all listings but attracting 50% of the total number of job applications, according to LinkedIn’s October 2022 Global Talent Trends report.

By September this year, employers scaled back remote job posting to 14% of all posts on the platform but these still attracted 52% of all site-wide applications in the US.

Remote jobs also continue to be popular around the rest of the world, LinkedIn said. In the UK, 9% of posts were for remote jobs and they received 20% of all applications.

Simialr findings were made in Germany - 9% of the job postings were remote positions and they attracted 22% of all applications. India's fully remote job postings stood at 10%, attracting 21% of all applications for them on the site.

LinkedIn also underlined that candidates continue to highly rank three priorities that came about as a result of the pandemic: a work-life balance, flexible work arrangements, and upskilling. These three were only beaten by compensation as the top priority candidates have, as of August 2022.

“Even facing an uncertain future, people still highly value two areas of work life that have gotten a lot of attention since the start of the pandemic: work-life balance, and flexible-work arrangements – including remote work. I expect those two attributes to remain top talent drivers for years to come,” said Jennifer Shappley, VP of global talent acquisition at LinkedIn.

Additionally, LinkedIn also found that hiring is levelling off after historic highs, and discovered that the hiring rate in a sample of 14 countries has decreased in all of them in the past year. In the US, hiring has gone down 13%, in the UK it has decreased by 11%, while in India it has decreased by 18%.

“This year we are seeing a slower pace of growth, as the economy comes back down to earth after a meteoric rise last year in one of the fastest recoveries we have ever seen,” said Karin Kimbrough, chief economist at LinkedIn.

“Nevertheless, labour-market dynamics remain tight. So, in many ways, employees still hold the power to demand more from their employers when it comes to salary, flexibility, and benefits. But this power balance is likely to start levelling out in the coming months.”

The report also found that workers are bracing for an economic downturn. LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index measured eight countries’ candidates’ and employees’ confidence in their ability to better their financial situation, which has decreased or remains low.

The point change from January to August 2022 was -3 for Japan, -5 for the US, and -7 for Germany. The UK came last with -10. However, France ranked 0, Australia +2 and the Netherlands ranked +1.

Employees continuing to prioritise remote working positions comes as some companies have been attempting to usher their workers back to the office.

In May 2022, the widespread return-to-office efforts caused a former Apple executive to join rival Alphabet after he left the company because of its strict return-to-work policy.

Ian Goodfellow previously oversaw machine learning and artificial intelligence at Apple and reportedly left the company due to a lack of flexibility in its workplace policies.