A closer look at trending job benefits in the US

Despite the recent #techlayoffs, the US job market remains competitive and, according to a joint report from Glassdoor Inc. and Indeed Inc, this trend is expected to continue despite near-term fluctuations. The human capital specialists explain that an aging population and reduced immigration have led to a smaller pool of talent overall.

With this bigger picture in mind, Bloomberg did an analysis asking workforce experts from Mercer, Harvard Business School, Willis Towers Watson Plc. or Qualtrics about the employee benefits that will fuel top talent acquisition in 2023. Among the trending benefits identified were Remote and flexible work, Financial health benefits, Sustainable work policies and Job security.

By leveraging Job Analytics, an insightful and actionable dataset sourced by LinkUp directly from the websites of employers, RavenPack wanted to fact check the Bloomberg analysis and draw additional insights on what is shaping recruiting and retention this year.

To do so, we analyzed over 77.8 million job postings from US employers from 2019 to 2022.

Focus: Financial health benefits, amidst rise of living costs

RavenPack data confirmed all major trends identified by Bloomberg, with a few notable nuances.

What we found in particular is that employers are including more and more benefits that focus on the financial well-being of the workers (Financial Health) - from 7.5% in January 2019 to over 19% in December 2022 - This trend is one way for employers to help workers to keep up with the increase in inflation.

In total, we identified no less than 24 Financial health - related benefits, such as elder-care assistance, employer-sponsored child care, Bike sharing membership, EV charging station or Gadget allowance.

Let’s take a closer look at 3 of them: Tuition Reimbursement, Employee Discounts and Student Loan Repayments. Tuition Reimbursement is particularly interesting, as it has almost doubled from 4.1% in Jan 2019 to 8.6% in Dec 2022.

Other take-aways:

• Having a flexible work schedule is currently seen as a crucial benefit for employees, and this is clearly reflected in our workforce insights. This emphasis is expected as more and more companies are encouraging workers to return to the office.
• Almost 9% of job postings mentioned remote or hybrid work as a benefit at the end of 2022, versus a little over 1% in 2019.
• Flexible work schedule spiked from 0.3% in September 2022, to 1.6% in December 2022.
• Overall, benefits (excluding the Financial Health, Sustainable work policies and Flexible work benefits), have been also increasing over the years. This reflects the fierce competition for talent in the job market.