Exploring the Benefits of Being a Veterinarian
February 20, 2025
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This post was originally published in December 2022 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.
As the first month of 2025 passes by, companies, candidates, and recruiters should define their course of action for the rest of the year. The ever-evolving labor market has many surprises in store; good thing you’re still in time to prepare and adapt to the workplace and hiring trends for 2025. So dive deep into this article and get ready for what’s coming.
After two years of recession speculation and continuous layoffs, many specialists glimpse an outlook in which the economy and inflation will cool down to more sustainable levels. This means the labor market will most likely develop throughout the year without widespread job losses or other adverse impacts.
Speaking about companies, specialists expect that during 2025, employers will fill open positions much easier than in the first couple of post-pandemic years, during which companies experienced the vicious cycle of seeing their best talent walk away due to the labor shortage or high demand of certain profiles to then compete with another employer to attract the most qualified candidates.
Although job growth will slightly decrease in 2025—an average of 120,000 jobs will be added each month compared to the previous pace of 190,000 per month—experienced economists and labor specialists point out that the labor market will remain stable.
Regarding unemployment, even though the 4.4% rate experts project represents an increase compared to the 4.1% rate of December 2024, last year’s initial expectations were higher (4.4%) than the highest level recorded throughout the year (4.2%). Even if unemployment increases up to 4.5%, it will still be in a historically low range; therefore, the forecast indicates that 2025’s unemployment rate can hold better than expected.
Speaking about the labor market, the last few years will be remembered for their many twists and turns. From employees’ standpoint, the focus on getting more transparent workplaces and healthier work environments led to workforce trends, such as quiet quitting, that reflect their discontent with jobs that don’t care about their well-being.
From the employers’ standpoint, their efforts were focused on maximizing recruitment budgets and improving productivity by adopting new technologies, such as artificial intelligence. Despite many workplaces still adapting to the 2024 job market’s changes, this year is already on course and it’s better to be prepared for 2025 workplace and hiring trends.
Although some of the workplace and hiring trends are already on the go among many companies, the data unveils some of the following will become game-changing. Here are the six trends that will impact the workforce the most during 2025:
After the rise of talent wars in the first two post-pandemic years and a labor market slowdown that we’ve experienced since early 2022, last year, employers preferred to be more restrained about their job postings. Despite the uncertainty and the recession threat, the US Job Posting Index (JPI) for the second half of 2024 was between 10% and 13% above pre-pandemic levels.
Therefore, an expected hiring trend for 2025 is that employers will remain more strategic about filling their open positions, and job seekers may notice that there are fewer postings than in previous years. Nevertheless, some specialists have an optimistic expectation as they point out that the consistent flattering in job postings over the last months is most likely preceding a consistent uptick in later 2025 or next year.
As in the last couple of years, pay equity and transparency remain hot topics as combined efforts to close gender, racial, and other pay gaps continue. In 2024, pay transparency experienced consistent growth, and with more states passing salary transparency laws —15 states and Washington D.C. so far— it will be more common to find wage information in job postings during 2025.
Contrary to the industries and states where employers remain reluctant to be open about pay information, there are many companies who are getting the most out of this hiring trend, as they use clear communication about salaries to attract more talent and speed up the hiring process, as candidates can determine if the posted wage fits their expectations and gives both parties have a set range for negotiating the terms of employment.
Artificial Intelligence has not only set a strong foundation in many industries, such as legal and recruitment, but generative AI remains the main tool for boosting productivity, automating processes, and improving talent acquisition results. However, the irruption of the GenAI trend in the workplace brings up the challenge of keeping AI human-guided.
On top of keeping the focus on employee experience, companies must be careful not to become an AI-first organization, as this approach can harm productivity and lead to losses in meaningful human expertise. Nevertheless, when used properly, GenAI tools are a powerful ally to boost employees’ performance and even identify high performers from regular talent.
In 2025, skills-based hiring will continue to gain ground as the most solid trend for hiring talent. This talent acquisition approach focuses on the candidate’s specific abilities for the open role, and it’s safe to say that it works as a measure against labor shortage, as employers aim to bring in workers who can perform the daily responsibilities of the job.
By using skills-based hiring, employers give career changers, fresh grads, and experienced professionals more equal chances of getting hired. In addition, for workers’ benefit, employers’ linear promotion approach has been replaced with a more flexible career development approach.
Aside from influencing a company’s hiring efforts, this trend also impacts the workplace as it pushes organizations to invest in upskilling programs that strengthen their workforce and talent pipeline. This will guarantee a better on-the-job success margin for both employees and new hires.
Since many companies have identified engagement gaps among their remote workforce, they have sent return-to-office mandates to get their employees back in the office. Nevertheless, this action has backfired as workers have refused to return to the workplace and some of them even threaten to leave their role.
With the above scenario in mind, hybrid work policies will become a middle ground for both parties. From an employer standpoint, it will work as a key drive to improve engagement and progressively bring back more employees into the office; on the other hand, hybrid work models will still provide the flexibility and work-life balance workers pursue.
Employee wellness continues to be at the top of the workplace trends for 2025, especially for those companies that seek to increase their retention rate.
Since the pandemic hit, the workforce has made it clear that although payment is a crucial aspect for them, there are other elements related to the work-life balance that matter immensely. Companies betting on this aspect have a clear advantage for retaining high performers or adding top talent to their teams.
Flexible work schemes, childcare support, financial advice, and mental health care are some perks that tip the balance for many candidates. The atmosphere in the workplace is another element that contributes to employee happiness, so be sure to maintain a healthy culture and environment in the office.
Not only the workplace and decision makers will be impacted by some of the future of work trends. Although recruiting practices have become more efficient and specific, some 2025 hiring trends will introduce some recruitment challenges for in-house and third-party recruiters.
Most of these trends are set by the workers’ demand and the technological developments involved in the recruitment process. Therefore, it is essential to be aware of any behavior or comments you receive from a candidate’s experience. Here are some of the top recruitment trends for 2025.
As AI technologies consolidate in companies’ processes, people analytics and data-driven practices have gained a bigger value throughout the recruitment process.
This data-driven approach allows companies and hiring managers to make more informed decisions about their workforce and how they build it. In order to optimize time and resources, employers will start measuring candidates’ likelihood, productivity, turnover rate, and other metrics by using predicting tools and talent management tracking platforms.
Since the past couple of years, a company’s DEI initiatives have become relevant, not only as an attractive element of workplace and employer branding but also because, at the end of 2024, there was a fall in DEI jobs compared to the peak of 2023.
With the above scenario in mind, specialists point out that 2025 presents an opportunity to set a strong foundation so that in the following years, DEI practices become a standard rather than a requirement in the labor market.
Therefore, talent acquisition executives and recruiters can contribute to building diverse teams, fostering inclusive work cultures, and meeting the ever-evolving needs of candidates from untapped labor markets.
While Employee Value Proposition has become a powerful element for making your company appealing to the most qualified talent in the market, candidates are more aware that some employers are using captivating EVPs as bait, when in reality they come short of their promises.
Having a solid company culture, as well as being consistent and accurate with an organization’s Employee Value Proposition is essential to draw in more talent, especially to attract high-performers as they tend to be more self-aware of their value in the market. In addition, being true about what your company or client (in case you’re an external recruiter) can offer and honoring your EVP also increases retention and avoids harming an employer’s branding.
Despite the challenges and ongoing trends, this year still presents an outlook in which businesses and professionals can thrive. Nevertheless, to capitalize on any chances of success, it’s key to be aware of the above and any upcoming workplace and hiring trends in 2025.
Contributed by Luis Arellano
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