HR Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: David Park | Last updated: August 16, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
U.S. employers held 7.4 million open jobs in June 2026 while hiring only 5.3 million people, a quits rate of 2.0 percent and a layoff rate of 1.1 percent. According to Axis Intelligence Research, the Workforce Mobility Index reads 90.1 against a 2019 baseline of 100, meaning American job mobility now runs roughly a tenth below its pre-pandemic norm.
Quick Answer: What Do HR Statistics Show in 2026?
The 2026 labor market is a low-hire, low-quit market. Job openings stand at 7.4 million with a 4.4 percent openings rate, hires at 5.3 million (3.4 percent), quits at 3.2 million (2.0 percent), and layoffs at 1.8 million (1.1 percent), per the Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS release for June 2026. Total employer compensation costs rose 3.4 percent over the year ending June 2026, while inflation-adjusted private wages fell 0.4 percent. According to Axis Intelligence Research, a full-time private-industry employee now costs an employer $96,928 a year in wages and benefits combined.
Key Findings
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, the Workforce Mobility Index stands at 90.1 as of June 2026, with the hires component at 89.5, the quits component at 87.0, and the openings component at 95.7 (2019 = 100).
- The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 7.4 million job openings, 5.3 million hires, and 3.2 million quits in June 2026, with the quits rate at 2.0 percent.
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, employer compensation cost per full-time private-industry employee reached $96,928 per year in March 2026, of which $29,141 is benefits.
- Compensation costs for civilian workers rose 3.4 percent for the 12 months ending June 2026, while inflation-adjusted private-industry wages and salaries fell 0.4 percent, according to the BLS Employment Cost Index.
- The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recovered almost $660 million for 17,680 discrimination victims in fiscal year 2025, including a record $528 million before litigation.
What Is the Current U.S. Job Openings and Hiring Rate?
The single most useful number in HR right now is not the openings figure that gets quoted in headlines. It is the hires rate.
In June 2026, the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey put job openings at 7.4 million, a 4.4 percent openings rate. Hires came in at 5.3 million, a 3.4 percent hires rate. Total separations were 5.4 million, marginally above hires. Openings rose in transportation, warehousing and utilities (+97,000) and federal government (+39,000), and fell in wholesale trade (-74,000) and nondurable goods manufacturing (-55,000).
Put the openings number next to the hires number and the requisition math stops being abstract. There are 7.4 million posted seats and 5.3 million monthly fills. Openings are being carried, not closed.
U.S. labor turnover, June 2026
| Measure | Level | Rate | Source | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Job openings | 7.4 million | 4.4% | BLS JOLTS | June 2026 |
| Hires | 5.3 million | 3.4% | BLS JOLTS | June 2026 |
| Total separations | 5.4 million | 3.4% | BLS JOLTS | June 2026 |
| Quits | 3.2 million | 2.0% | BLS JOLTS | June 2026 |
| Layoffs and discharges | 1.8 million | 1.1% | BLS JOLTS | June 2026 |
| Other separations | 353,000 | — | BLS JOLTS | June 2026 |
Payroll growth confirms the same picture from the other direction. Total nonfarm payroll employment fell 23,000 in July 2026 after averaging monthly gains of 34,000 over the prior twelve months, and the unemployment rate edged down to 4.1 percent, per the BLS Employment Situation for July 2026. Labor force participation was 61.4 percent and the employment-population ratio 58.9 percent.
David Park: A 4.1 percent unemployment rate reads like a healthy market to a board. It does not read that way to a recruiter, because the rate fell partly on a shrinking labor force rather than on placements. Requisitions are aging in a market that statistically looks fine. That gap between the headline and the pipeline is the thing worth explaining upward before someone asks why time-to-fill has not moved.
Workforce Mobility Index (WMI): How Freely Are U.S. Workers Moving in 2026?
WMI stands for the Workforce Mobility Index, built by Axis Intelligence Research to answer a question no single BLS series answers on its own: compared with a normal labor market, how much movement is actually happening between jobs?
According to Axis Intelligence Research, the WMI reads 90.1 as of June 2026 against a 2019 baseline of 100.
How the Workforce Mobility Index is calculated
The WMI is a weighted ratio of three JOLTS rates against their June 2019 values, as originally published in the BLS release of August 6, 2019.
WMI = 100 × [ 0.40 × (hires rate ÷ 3.8) + 0.35 × (quits rate ÷ 2.3) + 0.25 × (openings rate ÷ 4.6) ]
| Component | Weight | June 2019 baseline | June 2026 | Component reading | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hires rate | 40% | 3.8% | 3.4% | 89.5 | BLS JOLTS |
| Quits rate | 35% | 2.3% | 2.0% | 87.0 | BLS JOLTS |
| Job openings rate | 25% | 4.6% | 4.4% | 95.7 | BLS JOLTS |
| Workforce Mobility Index | 100% | 100.0 | — | 90.1 | Axis Intelligence Research |
Weights follow how directly each rate measures completed movement. Hires are the only series that counts a person actually changing seats, so they carry the most weight. Quits measure willingness to move. Openings measure stated demand, which is the weakest evidence of anything happening, so they carry the least.
The reading tells a specific story. Demand looks close to normal at 95.7. Willingness to leave is the weakest link at 87.0. Employers are still advertising roughly the pre-pandemic volume of work; workers are not moving to take it, and employers are not closing it.
Scope note: the index covers total nonfarm private and government establishments in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, matching JOLTS coverage. Baseline values are the June 2019 rates as first published, not the later benchmark-revised series, so the index compares like to like against the release journalists and HR leaders read at the time.
David Park: The number that should worry a retention team is 87.0, not 90.1. When quits fall, attrition dashboards look wonderful and nobody celebrates for long, because the people staying include the ones who wanted out and could not find an exit. That is deferred attrition, not retention, and it prices itself in engagement scores first and in a burst of resignations later, whenever the hires rate recovers.
What Does an Employee Actually Cost an Employer in 2026?
Compensation planning runs on hourly cost data that almost nobody converts into the annual number executives think in.
The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release for March 2026 put civilian total compensation at $49.32 per hour worked, split between $33.72 in wages and salaries and $15.60 in benefits. Private industry averaged $46.60 per hour: $32.60 in wages (69.9 percent) and $14.01 in benefits (30.1 percent). State and local government averaged $66.41 per hour, with benefits at 38.5 percent of the total.
Annualized employer cost per full-time employee, March 2026
According to Axis Intelligence Research, multiplying the BLS hourly figures by 2,080 hours produces the annual cost of one full-time-equivalent employee.
Annual employer cost = ECEC hourly cost × 2,080 hours
| Sector | Hourly total | Annual total | Annual wages | Annual benefits | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Civilian workers | $49.32 | $102,586 | $70,138 | $32,448 | Axis Intelligence Research from BLS ECEC |
| Private industry | $46.60 | $96,928 | $67,808 | $29,141 | Axis Intelligence Research from BLS ECEC |
| State and local government | $66.41 | $138,133 | $84,906 | $53,227 | Axis Intelligence Research from BLS ECEC |
This is an hours-worked conversion, not a payroll ledger: it assumes 2,080 paid hours and excludes part-time patterns, overtime beyond the survey average, and employer-specific severance or equity. Used consistently, it is the fastest way to translate a headcount plan into a budget line.
Are pay increases keeping up with inflation?
Not in the private sector. The BLS Employment Cost Index for June 2026 reported civilian compensation costs up 3.4 percent over twelve months, with wages and salaries up 3.2 percent and benefits up 3.8 percent. Private-industry compensation rose 3.3 percent, wages 3.1 percent, benefits 3.8 percent, and inflation-adjusted private wages and salaries fell 0.4 percent over the year.
Forward-looking budgets are flat. WTW’s Salary Budget Planning Report, published July 15, 2026 from 1,650 responding U.S. organizations and 34,024 responses across 156 countries, puts average 2027 U.S. salary increase budgets at 3.4 percent, against an actual 3.5 percent in 2026. Cost management (32 percent), a tighter labor market (28 percent) and inflation (27 percent) were the top drivers cited.
| Compensation measure | Value | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Civilian total compensation, 12-month change | 3.4% | June 2026 | BLS Employment Cost Index |
| Civilian wages and salaries, 12-month change | 3.2% | June 2026 | BLS Employment Cost Index |
| Benefit costs, 12-month change | 3.8% | June 2026 | BLS Employment Cost Index |
| Private real wages and salaries, 12-month change | -0.4% | June 2026 | BLS Employment Cost Index |
| Average U.S. salary increase budget, 2027 | 3.4% | July 2026 | WTW |
| Average U.S. salary increase, 2026 actual | 3.5% | July 2026 | WTW |
David Park: Benefits are compounding faster than base pay for the third consecutive reading, and that is where the comp band conversation quietly gets lost. An employee reads a 3.1 percent raise against a grocery bill. The employer reads a 3.3 percent total cost increase against a budget. Both are correct, and neither number is the one the other person is arguing about.
What Are the Current Employee Turnover and Retention Statistics?
Annualized from the June 2026 JOLTS rates, U.S. employers are absorbing roughly 38.4 million quits and 63.6 million hires a year at current monthly levels. Churn has not disappeared; it has slowed and narrowed. The economy-wide layoff rate of 1.1 percent also conceals wide sector variation, which our tech layoffs statistics tracker covers for the sector where announced cuts have concentrated.
Median tenure is the other half of the retention picture, and it points the opposite way from the low quits rate. The most recent BLS Employee Tenure release put median tenure with a current employer at 3.9 years in January 2024, down from 4.1 years in January 2022 and the lowest since January 2002. Public-sector median tenure was 6.2 years against 3.5 years in the private sector; leisure and hospitality was lowest at 2.1 years, mining highest at 5.7 years, with manufacturing at 4.9 years, a durability that shows up again in our US manufacturing statistics. [Older data] The tenure supplement is fielded biennially in January, so the January 2026 results are the next scheduled update and were not published as of this writing.
| Tenure measure | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median tenure, all wage and salary workers | 3.9 years | January 2024 | BLS Employee Tenure |
| Median tenure, private sector | 3.5 years | January 2024 | BLS Employee Tenure |
| Median tenure, public sector | 6.2 years | January 2024 | BLS Employee Tenure |
| Median tenure, leisure and hospitality | 2.1 years | January 2024 | BLS Employee Tenure |
| Workers with 12 months or less of tenure | 22% | January 2024 | BLS Employee Tenure |
How Much Does It Cost to Hire in 2026?
Executive hiring is where recruiting costs have moved, and moved hard. SHRM’s 2026 recruiting benchmarking brief reports a median cost-per-hire for executive positions of $15,000 in 2026, against $10,600 in 2025, $8,800 in 2022 and $5,000 in 2017. SHRM also reports that more than two in three organizations struggled to fill open positions in 2026, and that median time-to-fill for nonexecutive positions decreased year over year.
| Recruiting benchmark | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median executive cost-per-hire | $15,000 | 2026 | SHRM |
| Median executive cost-per-hire | $10,600 | 2025 | SHRM |
| Median executive cost-per-hire | $8,800 | 2022 | SHRM |
| Median executive cost-per-hire | $5,000 | 2017 | SHRM |
| Organizations reporting hiring difficulty | More than 2 in 3 | 2026 | SHRM |
According to Axis Intelligence Research, executive cost-per-hire has tripled since 2017 (a 200 percent increase) and rose 41.5 percent in the single year to 2026, while general compensation costs rose 3.4 percent over the same broad period. Executive search inflation is not compensation inflation. It is a scarcity signal at the top of the org chart, arriving in the same year the hires rate sits below its 2019 level.
HR Employment Statistics: How Many People Work in HR?
The function itself is growing faster than the economy it staffs.
Per the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, human resources specialists held 944,300 jobs in 2024, with employment projected to reach 1,002,700 by 2034, a 6 percent increase against 3 percent for all occupations, and about 81,800 openings projected each year. Median annual pay was $72,910 in May 2024, with the bottom 10 percent under $45,440 and the top 10 percent above $126,540.
Human resources managers earned a median $140,030 in May 2024 with 5 percent projected growth and about 17,900 annual openings.
| HR occupation | 2024 employment | Median pay (May 2024) | Projected growth 2024-34 | Annual openings | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Human resources specialists | 944,300 | $72,910 | 6% | 81,800 | BLS OOH |
| Human resources managers | — | $140,030 | 5% | 17,900 | BLS OOH |
| Compensation, benefits and job analysis specialists | — | $77,020 | 5% | 8,500 | BLS OOH |
| Labor relations specialists | — | $93,500 | — | — | BLS OOH |
| Training and development specialists | — | $65,850 | — | — | BLS OOH |
| Training and development managers | — | $127,090 | — | — | BLS OOH |
| Compensation and benefits managers | — | $140,360 | — | — | BLS OOH |
| All occupations (comparison) | — | $49,500 | 3% | — | BLS OOH |
Employee Benefits Statistics: What Do U.S. Workers Actually Get?
Benefits are 30.1 percent of private-industry employer cost and 38.5 percent in state and local government, per BLS ECEC for March 2026. Access is a separate question from cost, and it splits sharply by employer size.
Paid sick leave was available to 80 percent of private industry workers in 2025, according to BLS. Retirement benefits reached 59 percent of private industry workers in establishments with fewer than 100 workers, against 90 percent in establishments with 500 or more, in March 2025, per the BLS National Compensation Survey benefits program.
| Benefits measure | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benefits as share of private-industry compensation | 30.1% | March 2026 | BLS ECEC |
| Benefits as share of state and local government compensation | 38.5% | March 2026 | BLS ECEC |
| Private industry benefit cost per hour worked | $14.01 | March 2026 | BLS ECEC |
| Paid sick leave access, private industry | 80% | 2025 | BLS National Compensation Survey |
| Retirement access, establishments under 100 workers | 59% | March 2025 | BLS National Compensation Survey |
| Retirement access, establishments 500+ workers | 90% | March 2025 | BLS National Compensation Survey |
David Park: A 31-point retirement access gap between small and large employers is the single most underused recruiting fact in the small-business market. A 60-person company competing on base pay against a 5,000-person company is competing on the one dimension where it is structurally weakest, and ignoring the dimension where the gap is measurable and closable with a plan document.
Remote Work Statistics: How Much Work Still Happens at Home?
Remote work stopped moving and stayed high. In 2025, 35 percent of employed people did some or all of their work at home on days they worked, and 70 percent did some or all of it at their workplace, per the BLS American Time Use Survey released June 25, 2026. In 2019, before the pandemic, 24 percent worked at home and 82 percent worked at their workplace.
According to Axis Intelligence Research, the share of employed people doing some work at home is 11 percentage points above its 2019 level and unchanged from 2023, when it also read 35 percent. Two years of flat readings after a structural jump is the definition of a settled arrangement, not a transition.
| Work location measure | 2019 | 2023 | 2025 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Worked at home on days worked | 24% | 35% | 35% | BLS American Time Use Survey |
| Worked at workplace on days worked | 82% | 73% | 70% | BLS American Time Use Survey |
AI in HR Statistics: Where Does Adoption Actually Stand?
Adoption differs enormously by employer type, which is the part usually lost in the headline percentage. SHRM’s Talent Trends research on AI in HR, fielded to 2,040 HR professionals between February 3 and February 12, 2025, found 43 percent of organizations using AI for HR tasks, up from 26 percent the prior year. Publicly traded for-profit organizations led at 58 percent, ahead of private for-profits (45 percent), nonprofits (38 percent), state and local government (35 percent) and the federal government (19 percent).
| AI in HR adoption | Share using AI | Source |
|---|---|---|
| All organizations | 43% | SHRM Talent Trends |
| Publicly traded for-profit | 58% | SHRM Talent Trends |
| Private for-profit | 45% | SHRM Talent Trends |
| Nonprofit | 38% | SHRM Talent Trends |
| State and local government | 35% | SHRM Talent Trends |
| Federal government | 19% | SHRM Talent Trends |
Demand concentration matters as much as the headline rate. Security and service functions are where automation and hiring pressure meet first, patterns documented in our cybersecurity jobs statistics and AI customer service statistics.
The skills side is where the planning horizon sits. The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025, based on more than 1,000 large employers representing over 14 million workers across 55 economies, projects 170 million new roles and 92 million displaced by 2030, a net gain of 78 million and structural churn equal to 22 percent of jobs. Employers expect 39 percent of key skills to change by 2030, down from 44 percent in 2023. Of every 100 workers, 59 are projected to need reskilling or upskilling by 2030, and 11 of those are unlikely to receive it. [Older data] The Future of Jobs report is published biennially.
David Park: A 39 percent skills-change expectation and a 3.4 percent salary budget are two numbers from the same planning cycle that do not reconcile. Reskilling that touches three in five workers is a line item, and it is not inside a merit pool sized for cost containment. Whichever way an organization resolves that, it resolves it in a training budget, not a compensation memo.
HR Compliance Statistics: What Is the Discrimination Charge Volume?
The EEOC fiscal year 2025 Agency Performance Report records almost 270,000 inquiries, up nearly 9 percent from FY2024, 88,201 new discrimination charges processed, and 90,743 charges resolved, a 4 percent increase.
Recoveries reached almost $660 million for 17,680 victims, the agency’s third-highest annual total. That total breaks down into $528 million for 13,351 people through pre-litigation mediation, conciliation and settlements, more than $104.6 million for 1,824 federal employees and applicants, and $27 million for 2,505 individuals through litigation resolutions. Mediation resolved 7,929 of 11,346 cases, producing almost $245.3 million.
| EEOC measure, FY2025 | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Inquiries received | Nearly 270,000 | EEOC FY2025 Agency Performance Report |
| New charges processed | 88,201 | EEOC FY2025 Agency Performance Report |
| Charges resolved | 90,743 | EEOC FY2025 Agency Performance Report |
| Total recovered for workers | Almost $660 million | EEOC FY2025 Agency Performance Report |
| Victims receiving relief | 17,680 | EEOC FY2025 Agency Performance Report |
| Pre-litigation recovery | $528 million | EEOC FY2025 Agency Performance Report |
| Litigation recovery | $27 million | EEOC FY2025 Agency Performance Report |
| Mediations resolved | 7,929 of 11,346 | EEOC FY2025 Agency Performance Report |
According to Axis Intelligence Research, exposure has shifted decisively pre-litigation: 80 percent of FY2025 worker recoveries came before a case reached court ($528 million of $660 million). For an HR function, that reframes where the money is at risk. The controllable stage is the charge response and the mediation table, not the courtroom.
Methodology
Collection. Every figure in this report was retrieved from a primary source document during production between August 14 and August 16, 2026. Sources are the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, Employment Situation, Employment Cost Index, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, American Time Use Survey, Employee Tenure release, National Compensation Survey benefits program and Occupational Outlook Handbook; the EEOC FY2025 Agency Performance Report; the WTW Salary Budget Planning Report; SHRM benchmarking and Talent Trends research; and the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025. No figure in this report was taken from a secondary aggregator.
Workforce Mobility Index formula. WMI = 100 × [0.40 × (hires rate ÷ 3.8) + 0.35 × (quits rate ÷ 2.3) + 0.25 × (openings rate ÷ 4.6)]. Baseline denominators are the June 2019 JOLTS rates as originally published in BLS release USDL-19-1431 (August 6, 2019). June 2026 inputs are 3.4, 2.0 and 4.4 percent from BLS release USDL-26-1289 (August 4, 2026). Computation: (0.40 × 0.8947) + (0.35 × 0.8696) + (0.25 × 0.9565) = 0.9014, reported as 90.1. The index will be recomputed with each monthly JOLTS release.
Annualized employer cost formula. Annual cost = ECEC hourly cost × 2,080 hours. The multiplier assumes a 40-hour week over 52 weeks and does not adjust for part-time share, overtime above survey averages, or non-ECEC costs such as severance and equity.
Scope. JOLTS-derived figures cover total nonfarm establishments in the fifty states and the District of Columbia. ECEC and ECI cover civilian, private-industry and state and local government workers. Survey-based figures from SHRM, WTW and the World Economic Forum reflect their published samples and are labeled as such in the dataset. Where a series has not been refreshed within six months, the figure is marked [Older data] in the text with the reason stated.
Comparability. WEF projections, SHRM survey responses and BLS establishment data are not merged into any composite. The Workforce Mobility Index uses JOLTS inputs only, so that all three components share one methodology, one collection frame and one publication schedule.
About This Dataset
File: hr-statistics-2026.csv
Publisher: Axis Intelligence Research
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Coverage: United States, with global projections where noted; 2017 to 2034
Contents: 116 rows covering labor turnover, compensation cost, salary budgets, tenure, HR occupation employment and wages, benefits access, remote work, AI adoption, skills projections and EEOC enforcement, each with source organization, source document, URL, retrieval date, primary-source flag and calculation notes.
Reuse is permitted with attribution. Suggested citation: Axis Intelligence Research, HR Statistics 2026, 2026.
Citation formats
APA Axis Intelligence Research. (2026). HR statistics 2026: Hiring, turnover, compensation and benefits data. https://axis-intelligence.com/hr-statistics/
MLA Axis Intelligence Research. “HR Statistics 2026: Hiring, Turnover, Compensation and Benefits Data.” Axis Intelligence, 2026, axis-intelligence.com/hr-statistics/.
Chicago Axis Intelligence Research. “HR Statistics 2026: Hiring, Turnover, Compensation and Benefits Data.” Axis Intelligence, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/hr-statistics/.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the Workforce Mobility Index differ from the quits rate alone?
The quits rate measures only voluntary exits. The Workforce Mobility Index weights completed hires at 40 percent, quits at 35 percent and posted openings at 25 percent, so it separates demand that exists on paper from movement that actually happened. In June 2026 the openings component read 95.7 while the hires component read 89.5, a spread that a quits rate alone will not show.
Is a 2.0 percent quits rate good news for a retention program?
It is ambiguous, and treating it as a win is the common error. A low quits rate in a market where the hires rate is also depressed reflects a shortage of destinations, not a rise in commitment. Retention teams reading a 2.0 percent quits rate should pair it against engagement and internal-mobility data before claiming credit.
What should HR use as the fully loaded cost of an employee in 2026?
For private-industry planning, $96,928 per full-time-equivalent per year, derived from the BLS ECEC hourly cost of $46.60 at 2,080 hours. Roughly $67,808 of that is wages and $29,141 is benefits. Add employer-specific costs such as severance accrual, equity and recruiting spend on top; ECEC does not include them.
Why are benefit costs rising faster than wages?
Benefits rose 3.8 percent against 3.1 percent for private wages in the twelve months to June 2026. Insurance and legally required contributions do not follow merit-pool logic, so they escalate independently of the salary budget. The practical result is that total compensation cost per employee rises faster than any individual employee’s pay statement shows.
How much does an executive hire cost compared with five years ago?
SHRM puts median executive cost-per-hire at $15,000 in 2026 against $8,800 in 2022 and $5,000 in 2017. That is a tripling since 2017 and a 41.5 percent increase in a single year, according to Axis Intelligence Research, in a period when overall compensation costs rose in the low single digits annually.
What share of employer discrimination liability is resolved before litigation?
Eighty percent, according to Axis Intelligence Research, based on $528 million of the EEOC’s $660 million FY2025 worker recoveries coming through mediation, conciliation and pre-litigation settlement. Mediation alone resolved 7,929 of 11,346 cases.
Has remote work declined since 2023?
Not by the ATUS measure. The share of employed people doing some or all of their work at home on days worked was 35 percent in both 2023 and 2025. The share working at their workplace fell from 73 to 70 percent over the same period, which reflects the mix within hybrid schedules rather than a return to 2019 patterns.
Is HR itself a growing occupation?
Yes. BLS projects human resources specialists to grow 6 percent from 2024 to 2034, against 3 percent for all occupations, reaching 1,002,700 jobs with about 81,800 openings a year. HR managers are projected to grow 5 percent with about 17,900 annual openings.
How reliable are salary budget surveys for planning?
They are directionally strong and consistently clustered. WTW’s 2027 U.S. figure of 3.4 percent comes from 1,650 U.S. organizations within a 34,024-response global sample, and its 2026 actual of 3.5 percent matched its own prior-year projection. The caution is that budgets are averages across industries and employer sizes, so a single organization’s competitive position can sit well outside them.
Which HR statistic will change first in the next few months?
The JOLTS rates, which publish monthly and drive the Workforce Mobility Index. The July 2026 JOLTS release is scheduled for September 1, 2026.