Software and IT services hiring is surging as workers move to these cities en masse

Image: iStock/vasyl dolmatov

Each month, LinkedIn releases its WorkForce Reports highlighting employment hiring trends across the U.S. On Thursday, the company released its July report with information about year-over-year hiring rates, worker relocation data and more. In the age of remote work at scale, professionals can work from virtually anywhere. Turns out, Austin has been a top destination in the last year, but what cities are losing these workers?

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Tech sector hiring trends

The LinkedIn report parses out its platform hiring data across industries including different portions of the technology sector. Overall, hardware and networking hiring increased 3.3% year over year and jumped 2.7% month over month. Hiring in the software and IT services increased 62.3% year over year and jumped 8.9% month over month.

Workers on the move

Up to 23 million U.S. workers were planning to move due to work-from-home flexibility, and migration in the near term could increase fourfold compared to normal rates, according to an October Upwork report. The LinkedIn Workforce report also details relocation trends amid the transition to remote work at scale.

Overall, the top relocation destinations in the U.S. include Austin, Texas, North Port-Sarasota, Florida, and Nashville, Tennessee, according to LinkedIn. In a blog post about the findings the company explained that "for every 10,000 LinkedIn members in Austin, Texas, 121 arrived in the last 12 months."

Per 10,000 LinkedIn members, this population gain ratio is 118.46 for North Port-Sarasota, 73.52 for Nashville. In order, Tampa Bay, Florida, and Charlotte, North Carolina, round out the top five, per LinkedIn's data.

In the last year, Austin gained the most people from the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and the Big Apple, according to LinkedIn's Workforce Report for Austin.

On the flip side, the company's data also details areas with the highest population loss in the last year. In order, College Station-Bryan, Texas, and State College-Dubois, Pennsylvania, lost the most professionals per 10,000 LinkedIn Members in these areas. Per 10,000 LinkedIn members in these areas, College Station-Bryan and State College-Dubois lost 231.93 and 231.09 people, respectively.

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A number of major cities made LinkedIn's top 10 list of areas with the highest population losses in the last year, although these ratios are less pronounced. Per 10,000 LinkedIn members listed in a particular area, the San Francisco Bay Area ranked eighth with a population loss ratio of 35.29. New York City ranked ninth (26.2) and Chicago rounded out the top 10 (21.8).

Hiring rate methodology

In the July Workforce Report report, LinkedIn explained that its "hiring rate" metric is "the count of hires (LinkedIn members in each industry who added a new employer to their profile in the same month the new job began)" and this number is "divided by the total number" of U.S. LinkedIn members.

Also see

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• Working from home: How to get remote right (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
• Contract work policy (TechRepublic Premium)
• ZDNet's top enterprise CEOs of the 2010s (ZDNet)
• CXO: More must-read coverage (TechRepublic on Flipboard)