A couple of weeks ago, we heard refreshing news from Leslie Scott, the executive director of the National Association of State Personnel Executives (NASPE). She told us that the HR directors who attended NASPE's midyear meeting in Washington D.C. were feeling that the workforce shortage and hiring situation was improving.

At the same time, Scott noted that there was still a lot of heartache in attracting applicants in areas that have traditionally been hard to fill.

This week, we've turned to NEOGOV to see how closely job posting and application data reflect the sense that the workforce crisis that has dominated HR conversations in recent years has passed.

Our conclusion after looking at the data. The story is a little complicated.

In fact, on average, the state HR directors are correct that there was an improvement between 2022 and 2023.

•  Year over year, in 2023 there was about a 1% decrease in overall state job postings and a 21% increase in overall applications.

• One area in which there’s been a particularly worrisome workforce crunch has been in IT, but IT jobs are doing better this year with a 53% increase in applications year-over-year and a 5% decrease in job openings.

• Jobs in finance, which have also been particularly tough to fill, experienced a 23% increase in applications in 2023, and a 4% decrease in job openings year over year.

On the other hand, even with the year-over-year improvement, job postings are higher, and applications are lower when 2023 is compared to 2019.

In addition, Shane Evangelist, chief executive officer at NEOGOV, points out that when you divide state jobs into a top half (more desirable jobs) and a bottom half (less desirable), the year over year difference in applications per jobs for the top half went up 14 applications per job, while the bottom half rose only one application per job.

 It's also important to keep in mind that a high percentage of applicants, on average, get eliminated because they don’t meet minimum qualifications.  “My take is the attractive jobs are doing better but that’s never where the problem has been. We shouldn’t take focus off the bottom quartiles, which are really in need,” he says.

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