Flex Report: Job Growth

About the Job Growth Report

At the beginning of 2023, the vast majority of banks, economists, investors, and executives believed that we were on the path toward recession. The Fed had raised interest rates at the fastest pace in a generation. Inflation was up 6.5% over the prior 12 months. The stock market was down, and layoffs were abundant.

Fast forward to July 2023, and the economy is surprisingly strong! GDP grew by 2% in the first quarter of 2023. Inflation has dropped to 3%. The US has added a seasonally adjusted 1.67M jobs this year, and the unemployment rate is historically low at 3.6%. Perhaps a recession is on the horizon, but it's not showing up in the data yet.

With such unexpected strength in the labor market, we asked the question: which companies are finding the most success in adding talent? The Future Forum found that flexibility ranks second only to compensation in importance to job seekers. Are more flexible companies adding more talent than their Full Time In Office peers?

In this report, we combine our Flex Index data with People Data Labs company hiring data to see whether there is any linkage between a company's office requirements and its headcount growth. From that analysis, we can start to draw some early conclusions on how impactful flexibility is on a company's ability to attract talent. We hope these data-driven insights will be valuable to company executives in their ongoing evaluation of flexible work policies.