The 2026 talent market in numbers

How these numbers were gathered

Each report synthesizes third-party research current as of July 2026, and its figures are attributed to their original sources inside the report. The editions are refreshed semiannually. Some forward projections are inherently uncertain, and market-size figures across research vendors can diverge by methodology, so the reports emphasize directional trends over precise absolute figures where sources disagree.

Automotive — The Automotive Talent Market in 2026

• The report's cited research (CNBC, May 2026) records 20,000+ U.S. salaried positions cut by Detroit's Big Three since peak employment earlier this decade, alongside 2,000+ open roles.
• Filling engineer, researcher, and scientist roles in automotive/manufacturing can take more than 4 months (120+ days), per the report's cited research.
• A talent supply-to-demand ratio of 0.38 for autonomous-driving engineers in China's new-energy vehicle (NEV) sector — 0.38 qualified candidates per open role, so about 2.6 open roles compete for every one qualified candidate.
• -16,200 U.S. motor vehicles and parts jobs, year-over-year through May 2026.

Full report: The Automotive Talent Market in 2026 (13 sources cited).

Banking and financial services — The Banking & Financial Services Talent Market in 2026

• 44.7 days average time-to-hire in financial services — the longest of any major U.S. sector in The Resource Company's Time to Fill by Industry 2026 report (October 2025).
• McKinsey's February 2025 analysis projects a U.S. financial-advisor shortfall of roughly 100,000 by 2034 — 30–37% of the headcount baseline used in the analysis.
• 57,000 vs 53,000 — advisor exits outpaced entrants in 2025, the fourth net-loss year in the last five.
• 350,000 worker shortfall in digital and technology skills across U.S. banking as of 2025.

Full report: The Banking & Financial Services Talent Market in 2026 (12 sources cited).

CPG and retail — The CPG & Retail Talent Market in 2026

• 26.7% voluntary turnover in retail & wholesale — the highest of any sector Mercer measured, roughly 2x the 13.0% all-industry average.
• 265K–365K 2025 holiday seasonal hires forecast by NRF — the lowest level in at least 15 years, down from 442,000 in 2024.
• 63% of CPG employers cite skills gaps as their primary barrier to growth; 42% expect talent availability to decline further.
• 737K retail trade job openings in March 2026, up 48% year-over-year even as seasonal hiring volumes moderate.

Full report: The CPG & Retail Talent Market in 2026 (16 sources cited).

Executive search — The Executive Search Market in 2026

• 123 days, the average time from retained-search kickoff to a signed offer, with a 71% overall placement rate.
• 70–75% of the global workforce is passive talent, meaning not actively looking.
• The report's cited third-party research reports 40–80 hours for manual market mapping per search, compared with 15–20 hours for AI-assisted approaches.
• $35,879, the average cost-per-hire for an executive role — more than 6x the $5,475 average for a non-executive hire.

Full report: The Executive Search Market in 2026 (12+ sources cited).

Finance and accounting — The Finance & Accounting Talent Market in 2026

• 73 days average time-to-fill for CPA-credentialed roles — 41% longer than comparable non-CPA roles.
• The report's cited research (Wall Street Journal, 2022, from BLS data) reports a decline of 300K+ in U.S. accountant and auditor employment between 2019 and 2021–2022 — approximately 17%; the report notes many moved into adjacent roles rather than stopping work.
• 42% decline in new CPA exam candidates since 2016 — a record low of ~28,000 in 2024.
• In Personiv's Spring 2025 CFO Pulse Survey, 87% of surveyed CFOs cited the accounting talent gap as their #1 challenge.

Full report: The Finance & Accounting Talent Market in 2026 (17 sources cited).

Healthcare — The Healthcare Talent Market in 2026

• An average of 189,100 U.S. RN job openings per year through 2034, per the BLS projection cited in the report. Separately, HRSA projects a shortage of 267,330 full-time-equivalent RNs by 2028.
• 83 days on the NSI "RN Recruitment Difficulty Index" — the average time to recruit an experienced RN, with AACN citing a 56–102 day range.
• 18.3% average hospital-wide turnover. Separately, the cited research (NSI, 2025) puts the average cost of losing a single bedside RN at $61,110.
• 85% of healthcare facilities report at least moderate shortages of allied-health professionals across radiology, PT, OT, and lab.

Full report: The Healthcare Talent Market in 2026 (12+ sources cited).

Insurance — The Insurance Talent Market in 2026

• The report cites a projection that 50% of the U.S. insurance workforce would retire over a 15-year horizon, leaving more than 400,000 positions unfilled. The report does not specify the projection's baseline year.
• <1% actuarial unemployment throughout 2025.
• Actuarial, executive, and analytics roles topped the hardest-to-fill list in 5 surveys.
• 6:1 ratio of retirement-age workers to young entrants; only 25% of the workforce is under 35.

Full report: The Insurance Talent Market in 2026 (13 sources cited).

IT and technical — The IT & Technical Talent Market in 2026

• Software-engineering roles take ~60–62 days to fill, compared with the cited ~44-day cross-industry median — even as U.S. tech unemployment stayed below the national rate in mid-2025 (2.8% vs about 4.1–4.3%).
• 75% of the professional workforce is passive, meaning employed and not actively looking.
• 89% of talent professionals say quality of hire matters more, but only 25% feel confident measuring it.
• 48% of technical candidates showed signals of unauthorized AI use in live coding tests; 61% of those candidates still passed the bar.

Full report: The IT & Technical Talent Market in 2026 (27 sources cited).

Life sciences — The Life Sciences Talent Market in 2026

• 60–90 days average time-to-fill for a specialized life sciences role, compared with 30–45 days in the general market.
• 49.4% of clinical trial sites report at least mild staffing shortages across all research roles.
• 23% of the entire U.S. biopharma R&D workforce sits in Massachusetts alone.
• 60% increase in resignation rate among 5–10 year tenure CRAs, 2021 vs. 2020.

Full report: The Life Sciences Talent Market in 2026 (7 sources cited).

Light industrial — The Light Industrial Talent Market in 2026

• 9–10 weeks average temp/contract assignment tenure.
• Staffing firms using AI screening were 86% more likely to place candidates in under 20 days than firms relying on manual screening, per the report's cited research (Bullhorn 2025 GRID Industry Trends Report). This is a reported correlation, not a measured UPPER result.
• Amazon announced plans to hire 250,000 seasonal workers for the 2025 holiday season.

Full report: The Light Industrial Talent Market in 2026 (16 sources cited).

Manufacturing — The Manufacturing Talent Market in 2026

• U.S. manufacturing could need up to 3.8 million workers between 2024 and 2033; as many as 1.9 million positions could go unfilled if workforce challenges remain unaddressed, per Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute.
• 45–90+ days to fill a skilled maintenance tech or CNC machinist role — 3–4x longer than general production hires.
• 52.8% of tool-and-die-maker workers are 55 or older, versus just 13.9% aged 25–34.
• 65% of industrial hiring leaders say sourcing is the #1 bottleneck; 88% cite candidate shortages as their top challenge.

Full report: The Manufacturing Talent Market in 2026 (16 sources cited).

Media and entertainment — The Media & Entertainment Talent Market in 2026

• 17,000+ media and entertainment job cuts announced in 2025 — an 18% increase over 2024.
• -30% US film/TV production employment since late 2022, even as the industry restructures around project-based work.
• 45–70+ days typical time-to-fill for specialized creative and VFX roles, versus ~39 days for general tech & media roles.
• 57% of tech, media, and entertainment HR leaders rank reducing time-to-hire as their top 2025 priority.

Full report: The Media & Entertainment Talent Market in 2026 (15 sources cited).

In-house and RPO teams — The In-House & RPO Recruiting Market in 2026

• An average of 13.4–14 open requisitions per recruiter, up 56% in three years, per Gem's recruiting benchmarks.
• 44 days average U.S. time-to-fill in 2025, up 33% from 33 days in 2021.
• 23% reduction in average TA team size since 2022, even as hiring volume rose.
• $5,475 average nonexecutive cost-per-hire versus $35,879 for executives — about 6.6 times as much.

Full report: The In-House & RPO Recruiting Market in 2026 (17 sources cited).

Sales, marketing, and GTM — The GTM & Revenue Talent Market in 2026

• 27% of sales reps hit quota in 2023, down from 53% in 2018 — roughly half the 2018 rate.
• 34–35% average sales turnover rate, roughly double the 13–17.8% cross-industry average; SDR turnover hit a 40% median in 2024.
• $97,690+ the average all-in cost of a single bad sales hire, once ramp time and lost pipeline are counted.
• The report's cited third-party research (Salesforce, State of Sales 2026) found that sales reps who use AI were 3.7 times as likely to hit quota as those who did not.

Full report: The GTM & Revenue Talent Market in 2026 (12+ sources cited).

Staffing agencies — The Staffing & Search Agency Talent Market in 2026

• The report's cited third-party research found 3.5–4.5 times the odds of revenue growth among staffing firms with AI embedded across their workflow compared with firms without it.
• In the report's cited third-party research, 10% of surveyed staffing firms had AI embedded across their full workflow. Those firms had more than twice the odds of reporting a fill rate of at least 75% compared with firms without AI embedded across their full workflow.
• SIA's June 2025 release identified 224 firms with at least $100 million each in U.S. staffing revenue in 2024. Together, they generated $126.4 billion, representing an estimated 67.5% of the U.S. staffing market. Separately, the report's cited research counts roughly 27,000 staffing and recruiting companies nationwide.
• In the report's cited research, 53% of job seekers reported being ghosted by an employer in 2026, up from 38% in 2024 — an all-time high in that research.

Full report: The Staffing & Search Agency Talent Market in 2026 (12 sources cited).

Telecommunications — The Telecommunications Talent Market in 2026

• An October 2025 Continuum Capital study for the Fiber Broadband Association estimates a combined new-position and replacement need of 178,000 U.S. broadband construction and technician workers over the decade following the study.
• 17% of the telecom workforce is 55–64 — more than double the 7% share in the 1970s.
• U.S. wireless carriers have invested more than $734 billion cumulatively; the cited research reports 447,605 operational cell sites.
• About two-thirds of that projected need is retirement replacement, not net-new growth, per the same study.

Full report: The Telecommunications Talent Market in 2026 (8 sources cited).

UPPER publishes these reports twice a year. The numbers above stay open; each full report sits behind a short form at its own page.

Last updated: November 1, 2026