Our January 2024 snapshot takes a long look at jobs and wages nationally and regionally. Two of the primary snapshot findings are the strong increase in both inflation and wages since 2013, combined with the outpacing of wage growth by price inflation for much of the COVID and post-COVID era (until fairly recently). Today we take take a dive into job posting and wage trends (for the two most in-demand occupations in the metro area: Registered Nurses and Software Developers. While these occupations differ wildly in terms of function and required training, they are both vital to the local economy.
As shown in the snapshot, Registered Nurses and Software Developers topped the occupation group postings in our region, with over 40,000 and over 25,000 unique postings respectively, from November 2022 to November 2023.
Using Lightcast data as in the snapshot, we collected monthly data on number of postings and median advertised wage for these occupations over the last 3 years. Figure 1 shows (below) the trend of monthly postings in the metro Atlanta area for both occupations. For Registered Nurses, September 2022 was the peak of unique postings, but the number of postings has steadily climbed for most of Q4 2023. Demand for Software Developers has fallen steadily since early 2023. Major economic disruptions like the COVID pandemic and the onset of generative AI (like ChatGPT) have undoubtedly influenced and/or shaped current conditions and future expectations for these occupations, yet it is difficult to measure/ isolate theses influences on occupation demand over time.
(Note: the charts above and below are interactive, so you can click on one of the line series in the legend to toggle that occupation on or off)
In Figure 2 below, we see how median advertised wage for Registered Nurses surged during the COVID pandemic, spiking in October 2021 at nearly $150,000, well above the median advertised wage for Software Developers (almost $123,000). However, since that same time in Fall 2021, we see that postings for Software Developers have consistently had a higher advertised wage than have postings for Registered Nurses.
As shown in the full snapshot, these two occupations combined for nearly 70,000 postings in the metro Atlanta market over the past year, indicating strong demand for both. Total employment for these occupations is almost 90,000 in the metro market, involving a substantial subset of the area’s overall workforce. A strong metro economy with a growing population is going to rely on occupations with these functions and skill sets in 2024 and beyond.