Your monthly labor market index—built for talent leaders
Register for Our Next BriefingMarket analyst's callout board for January 2026
December delivered another month of slow, uneven job growth—+50,000 nonfarm jobs with unemployment dipping to 4.4%. But the real signal is concentration: gains were led by Food Services (+27K) and Health Care (+21K), while Retail Trade shed 25K jobs. Translation for TA teams: hiring momentum exists, but it’s isolated—making competition feel intense in select segments even as the broader market stays stalled.
For all of 2025, employers added 584,000 jobs—down sharply from 2 million in 2024, marking the weakest year of employment growth since 2020. This slowdown is reinforcing the “stuck” labor market dynamic: fewer openings, slower approvals, and reduced candidate movement. TA teams are navigating a market defined less by hiring volume and more by selectivity.
The Talent Market Index shows broad month-over-month cooling, with prices coming down in most segments. But the year-over-year picture tells a different story: costs remain elevated and uneven, reflecting persistent scarcity in revenue-driving and frontline roles. The result is a fragmented market—some segments are thawing, others are tightening, and the spread between them is widening.
The Talivity Talent Market Index (TMI) offers a fresh perspective on talent supply and demand dynamics across industries. It tracks the fluctuating prices employers pay to attract talent through paid advertising across diverse media channels.
Current month performance indicators for January 2026
View Data As ChartMarket Leaders Tighten: Finance & Ops and Healthcare Hold the Line as Transportation & Logistics Surges
Finance & Operations and Healthcare led the Index in January, with Transportation & Logistics emerging as the most disruptive mover. Despite broader cooling trends across several functions, employers continue to pay premiums for experienced operators, frontline support, and revenue-driving roles where available talent remains thin and hiring urgency stays high.
The strongest month-over-month increases came from Transportation & Logistics (+126.0%) and Retail (+47.8%), signaling localized tightening and potential seasonality-driven competition in frontline hiring. Food Services (+1.3%) also ticked up slightly, reinforcing ongoing demand in high-churn roles. Meanwhile, notable declines were seen in IT & Related (-16.3%), Sales (-15.5%), and Finance & Operations (-7.4%), reflecting a cautious start to the year and more selective hiring behavior across corporate functions.
The largest year-over-year increases were seen in Transportation & Logistics (+111.5%), Finance & Operations (+60.4%), Sales (+57.6%), and Food Services (+40.0%). These gains point to persistent scarcity in operational and revenue-critical roles even as overall hiring slows. By contrast, IT & Related (-19.1%) and Hospitality (-13.3%) remain below last year’s levels, highlighting continued cooling in segments that were previously among the most competitive.
The broader labor market continues to soften, defined less by volume and more by selectivity. January’s Index reflects a market where many segments are cooling month-over-month, but year-over-year costs remain elevated and uneven. The result is a “frozen” hiring environment overall—punctuated by sharp spikes in specific frontline and operational categories where employers are still competing aggressively for hard-to-find talent.
Detailed insights by sector for January 2026
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