Chelsea Walker never thought she’d still be job hunting a year after getting laid off.
The 42-year-old HR specialist with more than a decade of experience and a master’s degree has applied to 1,320 roles since September 2024, when she was laid off from TikTok.
Her inbox is a graveyard of rejections.
‘I am not in control of my future,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘My home is at stake right now and my prospects are extremely thin. I worry day and night about what I am getting ready to lose.’
She’s not alone.
The US job market has slowed to its weakest pace since the pandemic-era recovery, with billion-dollar corporations like Meta, Amazon, Walmart, and Microsoft cutting staff, freezing hires, or automating away roles altogether.
For white-collar pros like Walker, it’s a punch in the gut. Shiny tech roles at billion-dollar companies, once sold as tickets to six-figure paychecks, are becoming harder-to-get.
While 7.4 million Americans remain unemployed, some corners of the economy are desperate for workers. Today, the Daily Mail highlights 20 in-demand jobs, many with more than 200,000 vacancies and salaries approaching $100,000.
Chelsea Walker, 42, tells the Daily Mail she has been fighting to get a job for over a year. Her resume includes some of America’s top companies, but ‘my prospects are extremely thin,’ she said. She’s willing to take a job witha $60k pay cut
ZipRecruiter shared data with the Daily Mail showing the top 20 fields that cannot hire workers fast enough, despite the cooling labor market.
Healthcare workers, truck drivers, HVAC technicians, and restaurant employees are having no trouble finding new positions, the data shows.
Here is a deeper dive into the biggest job booms and the jobs worries swirling through America’s jobs market today:
Healthcare: nurses at the top
The single most in-demand job in America right now is a registered nurse.
The role, which requires a bachelor’s degree and pays an average of $45 per hour, is expected to keep its need for workers, with ZipRecruiter reporting a 17 percent increase in job postings since September of 2024.
ZipRecruiter says there are 202,000 active registered nursing job postings right now.
Licensed nurses with medical degrees and caregivers for the elderly aren’t far behind. Employers posted 45 percent more openings for practical nurses in the past year.
Nurses – both registered without medical degrees, and practical with a doctorate – are some of the most sought-after employees in the market
Liz Bentley, an independent consultant, tells the Daily Mail that nurses are in a great position to cash in on the market: ‘Companies can’t hire enough’
Healthcare employers are experiencing a shortage that’s years in the making.
Baby boomers are growing older and more dependent on healthcare, just as a wave of burned-out nurses hits retirement — leaving hospitals from Manhattan to rural Alabama scrambling for help.
‘Companies can’t hire enough nurses and care coordinators,’ Liz Bentley, an independent consultant and workplace expert, told the Daily Mail. ‘Right now, the hottest demand is in healthcare.’
Family doctors, with their over $200,000 average annual salaries, have seen the biggest increase in job listings since September 2024. Open positions have risen 50 percent to 16,000 US jobs this month.
Retail and customer service: Help wanted, kind of
Tech specialists willing to turn in their keyboards for shirt-folding tables are finding some luck.
Customer-facing roles — including shop cleaners, telemarketers, cashiers, and store managers — nabbed five of the top 20 roles in ZipRecruiter’s data.
Retail jobs never seem to stay filled for long: late nights, low pay, and cranky customers churn out employees faster than stores can post new openings.
Retailers are also scooping up workers, but not at the same pace as years past. While jobs like sales floor manager, associates, and cashiers make the top-20 most sought-after positions, the number of jobs in the sector declined significantly
Shoppers have continued to spend a record amount at store, boosting retailer profits and making companies need a deeper workforce
Experts tell the Daily Mail they expect retail positions to stay at the top of the list, as shoppers continue to spend at a record pace and retailers prep for the all-important holiday season.
‘Holiday hiring may not reach the peaks of past years, but it will not be terrible,’ Neil Saunders, a retail expert at GlobalData, told the Daily Mail.
‘Retailers are trying to be disciplined at the same time as ensuring there is enough capacity to serve customers and ensure speed in online operations.’
Right now, there are 48,000 open customer service positions, ZipRecruiter said.
Skilled trades: A hidden gold mine
Employees without a college degree might be in the best position.
Truck drivers, delivery workers, and hair stylists have seen a boom in job openings, with growth ranging from three to 12 percent among open jobs.
HireQuest, a staffing agency, also said its seen a boom in midwest construction jobs for mid-sized cities like Milwaukee and Birmingham, and is prepping for robust job growth as tech companies build data centers for AI.
The US is running low on skilled hands, as young workers aren’t signing up for apprenticeships, while seasoned pros retire.
That’s created a bottleneck when construction firms, automakers, and tech companies are looking to build new data centers and manufacturing sites.
Construction workers are also in demand, especially in the Midwest where tech companies are scooping up land for data centers
Delivery drivers – particularly for huge tech companies like Amazon and Uber Eats – are also in high demand
For workers, pay is climbing.
A licensed electrician can easily make $80,000–$100,000, and HVAC technicians are seeing signing bonuses of up to $10,000 in some markets.
Many jobs require certifications rather than four-year degrees, making them accessible to career changers burned by the corporate job hunt.
The AI question
Knowledge workers like Walker have been feeling the squeeze, as companies turn to robots to draft marketing copy, handle customer emails, or generate video content.
That trend is pronounced for tech workers at the start of their careers. Laura Gassner Otting, a former non-profit CEO and White House advisor, calls the lack of beginner tech roles a ‘vanishing first rung.’
‘AI and automation are eliminating many entry-level roles,’ she said. ‘For young professionals, it means being locked out before they can even prove themselves.’
Gassner Otting says women have been the hardest-hit by the hiring changes, slowing down their promotion prospects and earnings potential.
Sam Altman, the CEO behind OpenAI and ChatGPT, has been leading a tech revolution with generative AI capabilities – independent experts warn that the high-tech capabilities are eroding entry-level jobs and making it hard to enter the workforce
Tech companies, once seen as the mecca for six-figure salaries, have gone through major cuts in the past year, slashing positions as they spend more on the AI boom
‘Women are disproportionately penalized by childcare costs and return-to-office mandates,’ she said. ‘It’s a trend that could undo years of progress on gender equity.’
Bryce Batts, the co-founder of Career Collective, said job seekers with five to 10 years have the upper hand.
‘Employers want people who can step into leadership pipelines quickly,’ he said. ‘But it’s not uncommon for professionals to submit 50-plus applications and still be on the market for four to six months.
And now, incoming data is starting to back that up.
September’s ADP job estimate showed the US economy lost an estimated 32,000 positions, while the federal governments numbers have been consistently revised downward.
For workers like Walker, the irony is hard to miss. She’s still applying, still refreshing her inbox, still waiting for someone to bite.
‘All I need is for someone to give me a chance and I can prove what a good employee I can be,’ she said.
‘At this point, I am willing to take a pay cut over $60,000 just to have a job with benefits.’
For millions of job seekers like her, the 2025 labor market feels like a paradox. It’s scarce on jobs tech companies promised, and abundant with roles that pay far less.
