iCIMS 2021 Workforce Report shows optimism amongst employers, yet contains caveats around how successful they will be in their efforts towards any "Great Rehire". The data was gathered from analyzing trends from the 332+ million global users of the iCIMS Talent Cloud, with insights from a third-party survey of HR leaders to provide a comprehensive view of the labor market in 2020 and a forward-looking outlook.

According to the report, at the close of 2020, there were positive signs of a recovery, with overall job openings down just 3%, hires down 10%, and 91% of employers stating they are hiring for new roles this year. This contrasts - somewhat - with Monster's research, which said 82% of employers plan to hire in 2021 (and the majority of that hiring will be rehiring/ backfills). If we've learned anything form 2020, "the future's uncertain, and the end is always near".

A few high-level data points from the report:

• Candidates are applying at a higher volume, with application volume up 13% over 2019.
• Job openings fell 3%, and hires fell by 10% by year-end. This reflects late-year hiring surges: earlier in 2020, hires had fallen by 35%.
• Candidates appear much more willing to move: out-of-state applicants rose by 34%.
• Contingent hiring rose, with 58% of respondents planning to lean heavily on contingent in 2021.
• D&I remains complicated. While diverse hiring rose in 2020, 84% of HR leaders feel they are not reaching diverse talent pools.
• Digitization is broadly accepted, and aggressively pursued: 86% of HR leaders say their organizations have started using new collaboration tools to adjust to the pandemic, and 40% using new tools specific to HR
• 97% of organizations plan to increase their technology investments in HR and talent acquisition in 2021
• 49% of respondents plan to increase investments in virtual recruiting and candidate engagement technology, and 47% will increase investments in digital tools for hiring and processing offers
• 80% of respondents accelerated or began digital transformation efforts
• Tech hiring remains challenging. While time-to-fill fell for most roles in 2020, it held steady for technology-related roles. (42 days for the former, 61 for the latter).
• Internal mobility has arrived: 72% reported that up to half their workforces were redeployed in 2020.
• 55% report that they are offering on-the-job training to maintain operations

The report paints a picture consistent with the history of 2020: a shock to the system, attempts at adaptation, diversity hiring a complex challenge, and candidates at times overwhelming recruiting organizations with applicant volume, with a return to some level of normalcy potentially on the horizon.

Job openings are increasing, with employers added slightly more job posts late last year, but hiring slipped as the labor market ended 2020 on an uncertain note, the Labor Department reported earlier in the month. Total openings increased to 6.65 million in December, yet they remain below the pre-pandemic level of just over 7 million in February 2020. That still left a gap of some 4.1 million workers who remained unemployed, many of whom were still displaced by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Job applications are rising for certain types of roles, while dropping for others. The rise in applicant volume is skewed, as a result. Reached for comment, one TA leaders told RNN that "I have remote roles, and I have boots-on-the-ground, shoulder-to-shoulder roles. My recruiters who hire remote are swamped. But it's increasingly hard to find people who want the in-person jobs. And the ones who do apply tend to fall out if they find a remote option. Which is frustrating."

In an interview with NPR, Julia Pollak, a labor economist with ZipRecruiter, described a situation where people may be reluctant to return to certain types of roles and working conditions:

"There's this huge gap between the kinds of conditions under which people are prepared to work and the kinds of conditions that they actually find in the jobs that are available," Pollak says. "A pandemic is a shock both to labor demand and to labor supply, and it's a really significant shock to labor supply. There are many, many people who have pulled back and are deciding to sort of wait out this year and come back to work when the conditions are right."

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