Data insights

These Are the Fastest-Growing Jobs Around the World

Recruiters are nothing if not versatile. Over the course of 2020, they pivoted continuously, changing where they work (home), where they recruit (everywhere), and whom they recruit (more diversity, very different roles).

A year ago in the Emerging Jobs Report, we noted the urgency with which businesses around the world had begun looking for AI specialists, robotic engineers, and cyber security experts, roles that were largely nonexistent even a few years earlier.

Companies are still hiring for those positions, but brand-new research shows that their focus has changed. This year we’ve changed LinkedIn’s Emerging Jobs Report, our annual look at five-year job trends, to focus on what’s happening right now. Our new Jobs on the Rise list features the fastest-growing job trends from 2020 and the skills needed in those  positions.

The positions that are experiencing explosive growth have shifted to more timeless roles — educators, healthcare workers, and salespeople — or age-old positions operating in new channels such as digital content creators, digital marketers, and e-commerce workers. In many cases, the skyrocketing demand for these roles has been a response to the effects of COVID-19 on consumers, companies, and communities.

For the current report, we scoured 2020 LinkedIn data from April to October and compared it with the same period in 2019 to identify the fastest-growing job categories in 14 countries and South East Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand collectively): 

Top 3 Jobs on the Rise by Country

Australia

  1. Healthcare/medical frontline
  2. Construction workers
  3. Professionals on the frontline of e-commerce

Brazil

  1. Specialized medical professionals
  2. Technology roles
  3. Pharmaceutical/research roles

France

  1. Supermarkets and retail
  2. Specialized medical professionals
  3. Real estate

Germany

  1. Digital content freelancers
  2. Legal
  3. Professionals on the frontline of e-commerce

India

  1. Freelance content specialists
  2. Social media/digital marketing
  3. Marketing roles

Italy

  1. Education roles
  2. Specialized medical professionals
  3. Digital marketing specialists

Mexico

  1. Specialized medical professionals
  2. Business development & sales roles
  3. Creative services

Netherlands

  1. Education roles
  2. Specialized medical professionals
  3. Customer service roles

Singapore

  1. Healthcare/medical support
  2. Education roles
  3. Logistics & supply chain

Spain

  1. Education roles
  2. Specialized medical professionals
  3. Healthcare supporting staff

Sweden

  1. Professionals on the frontline of e-commerce
  2. Retail
  3. Specialized medical professionals

United Arab Emirates

  1. Specialized medical professionals
  2. Digital content freelancers
  3. Healthcare supporting staff

United Kingdom

  1. Professionals on the frontline of e-commerce
  2. Healthcare supporting staff
  3. Digital content freelancers

United States

  1. Professionals on the frontline of e-commerce
  2. Loan and mortgage experts
  3. Healthcare supporting staff

South East Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand)

  1. Digital Content Freelancers
  2. Data Analyst
  3. Software & Engineering Roles

We found that in many countries the fastest-growing job categories were in business lines — finance (top 10 in six countries and South East Asia), real estate (four countries), and customer service (six countries and South East Asia) — that have been core to organizational success for generations. And though the overwhelming emphasis on software, data, and technology that dominated last year’s report has subsided, software/technology jobs were still in the top 10 in five countries and South East Asia.

For recruiters, these reports provide a look at what kind of roles you  may be filling, what kind of skills candidates should have, and what are the most common previous jobs for successful candidates. Let’s take a look at some of the key takeaways from this year’s reports:

Overwhelmed by COVID: Everyone needs healthcare workers

Since the novel coronavirus began spreading its noxious tendrils around the world, hospitals and other medical institutions have scrambled to find doctors, nurses, and paramedics. Frontline or specialized medical professionals are one of the top three emerging job categories in nine countries, and in four — Australia, Mexico, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates — it is the No. 1 category.

The pandemic also created a crushing need for healthcare support staff, who were sometimes helping doctors and nurses with patients and other times were themselves providing care to patients who were unable or too reluctant to visit their doctors in hospitals or medical centers. Healthcare support staff, including patient services coordinators, healthcare assistants, and home health aides, is a top ten emerging job category in 12 countries and South East Asia.

The pandemic has magnified, at a terrible cost, a longstanding shortage of nurses in the U.S. that mirrors a more global shortage. Because nursing requires years of specialized training, recruiters can’t simply look for people with skills adjacencies to fill roles. Most nursing jobs have to go to people who are in nursing — so travel nurses in the U.S. have bounced around the country on the heels of the coronavirus. In 

No stopping online shopping: Roles in e-commerce explode

As the pandemic confined people around the world to their homes, some began to joke that their only true relationship was with their delivery driver. Amazon alone hired 427,000 people from January to October and was hiring about 2,800 a day from the beginning of July on. This unprecedented global hiring spree helped make e-commerce workers — drivers, supply chain specialists, warehouse team leads, and package handlers, and many others — one of the top 10 fastest-growing job categories in South East Asia and 11  of the 14 countries we examined.

E-commerce was expected to grow globally 19% in 2020 and 40.3% in the U.S. “We are seeing signs that online purchasing trends formed during the pandemic may see permanent adoption,” says Taylor Schreiner, director of Adobe Digital Insights. For recruiters, this means this is not a one-year flash in the pandemic.

As e-commerce businesses buttressed their teams, they hired many people with backgrounds in sales or marketing. In Germany, for example, the top three previous roles for e-commerce coordinators were account manager, salesperson, and head of sales, while in Singapore, the top two previous roles for the same position were marketing executive and marketing specialist.

Class warfare: Competition heats up for educators

There was nothing old school about 2020 as students from preschool to graduate school moved to virtual classrooms. In Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands  [ch], educators — classroom teachers, professors, principals, tutors, academic administrators, and more — were the No. 1 emerging job category. They were a top ten job in 11 countries and South East Asia.

The new educational reality created a soaring need for tutors to help students, who had been shut out of classrooms, libraries, and science labs, from falling behind. And the pandemic magnified an existing teacher shortage in some parts of the world. Many of the top skills for teachers are very education-specific: curriculum development, classroom management, lesson planning, and, ever so important these days, e-learning.

At colleges and universities, however, among the top skills for teaching assistants are programming languages (C++, R, Python, MATLAB, etc.) and data analytics skills. No surprise then that many TAs have worked previously as software engineers.

The write stuff: Surging demand for content creators

In India, Germany, and South East Asia, digital content specialist or freelancer is the No. 1 emerging job category, and it’s in the top ten in another seven countries. Bloggers, podcasters, and YouTubers are in demand as companies look to create both tactical and strategic content that will help their customers make sense of the new and rapidly changing environment.

But the growing demand for digital content predates the pandemic. In the U.S., for example, 37% of Americans 12 or older listened to a podcast in the last month, more than double the 17% who were tuning in every month just five years ago.

If you’re on the hunt for content specialists, the people to start with are those already doing work as editors, writers, journalists, videographers, and graphic designers. 

Coaches — They’re not just for sports teams anymore

The lockdowns and shutdowns sparked by COVID-19 have generated both the impetus and opportunity for self-improvement. Personal and professional coaches were one of 10 fastest-growing jobs in seven countries.

As jobs were eliminated — or overhauled — at the beginning of the pandemic, people seized the moment to develop new skills and competencies. For example, in the first week of April, people watched 1.7 million hours of content on LinkedIn Learning, three times the amount they had watched during the first week of January.

Coaches come from an extraordinary range of backgrounds, from teachers to business owners, fitness instructors to recruiters, but some of the most common skills include leadership development, time management, facilitation, and executive coaching. Life coaches in many countries also list hypnosis, meditation, and stress management as skills.

Sales plan: Sharp need for people in business development and sales

As COVID-19 turned businesses everywhere on their head, companies adapting to their new realities began looking for people who could help them chart a course back to sustained viability. In eight countries and South East Asia, business development and sales roles were a top 10 fastest-growing job category.

Some of the skills that pop up frequently for people in a variety of business development and sales roles include sales management, strategic planning, and negotiation. And if you’re planning to recruit a strategic advisor, you may want to hone your own negotiation skills — many of them were founders, CEOs, and managing directors in their last job.

Methodology 

Jobs on the Rise are defined as the career categories that have seen the highest year-over-year growth rates in hiring while looking at the April to October 2020 timeframe. LinkedIn’s Economic Graph data scientists looked across more than 15,000 job titles to uncover the jobs that have grown the most compared with 2019 levels. Those titles were then grouped into overarching career trends that capture as many as 25 specific job titles within an individual category. Career trends are ranked using a combination of year-over-year growth rate and the raw size of the job demand.

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