Engineers have seen inconsistent hiring demand over the past few years, yet as one of the STEM fields, seem to always bounce back with increased volumes of job ads. The past few months we have started to see a decline in the number of available positions – this is often predicted to be "seasonal" since hiring historically has slowed during the last half of the year. While demand may be dropping nationwide, there are a few places that are actually still growing at a very fast pace. We thought we'd take a look at one of these places – Houston, Texas – and how recruiters in this area may be affected by growing demand.
Hiring Demand for Engineers – 4 Year Nationwide Hiring Trend
Source: WANTED Analytics
While the nationwide hiring demand for engineers has declined by almost 10% since March 2012, demand in the Houston metro area has grown by 11%. It can also be noted that Houston has seen the highest demand for engineers of any US city every month since February, when it overtook Los Angeles as the city with the most online engineering job ads. While demand dropped in the middle of the recession, it has steadily and quickly grown and is now higher than pre-recession demand.
Hiring Demand for Engineers in Houston, TX – 4 Year Hiring Trend
Source: WANTED Analytics
So what kinds of Engineers are companies in Houston looking for? The 10 most in-demand engineering job titles in this area are:
- Mechanical Engineer
- Project Engineer
- Electrical Engineer
- Process Engineer
- Engineer
- Manufacturing Engineer
- Reservoir Engineer
- Senior Process Engineer
- Quality Engineer
- Senior Mechanical Engineer
Also, here are the 5 skills that are most commonly included in engineering job ads in the Houston metro area:
- Project management
- Microsoft Office
- Quality Assurance (QA)
- Autodesk AutoCAD
- Microsoft PowerPoint
Fast growing demand for Engineers in Houston has caused recruiting conditions to become more difficult. Our Hiring Scale shows that jobs will be harder to fill than in most other cities nationwide and are likely to take about 6.5 weeks to fill in Houston. However, there are some areas near Houston that are currently experiencing better recruiting conditions and may be a source of additional candidates. Some of these cities include Houma, Louisiana and both Austin and Dallas, Texas. By targeting job ads in these areas and sourcing potential candidates, employers in Houston will see less competition from other companies to attract talent, larger candidate pools to source from, and are likely to shorten the time it takes to fill an open job. For example, it takes just 5 weeks on average to fill an engineering job in Houma, LA. While an employer in Houston may need to relocate a candidate, this may be a better option since the job will be filled more than 1 week faster.
Hiring Scale for Engineering Jobs in Houston, Texas
Source: WANTED Analytics
Are you recruiting for Engineers? Find out average salaries, posting period, candidate supply, and hiring demand in your area and compare them to Houston with a free trial of WANTED Analytics.
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