2012 AGRIBUSINESS JOB REPORT U.S Edition
Highlights Unemployment rates in the United States hovered around eight percent in 2012, down from nine percent in 2011. Meanwhile, the number of jobs posted on AgCareers.com in 2012 surpassed 2011 s record-high level. The agriculture, food, biotechnology and natural resources sectors seem to have plenty of available positions. AgCareers.com experienced an increase of 477 more positions posted in 2012. The following pages provide a review of trends from 2012. Statistics and information are based on analysis of jobs posted on the site, feedback from client surveys and analysis of job seeker traffic on the AgCareers.com website. Key Findings The number of applications processed through the site increased by 43%. Total number of job postings in the United States and Canada approached 44,000, surpassing 2011 s record-high year by 477 jobs. The number of jobs posted was over 3,600 each month throughout the United States and Canada, with the largest number of jobs posted in the Midwest region of the United States with more than 26,000 jobs. The largest number of applicants were also from the Midwest region (48%), followed by the South (23%). Jobs posted ranged in industry type, such as Agronomy, Equipment/Machinery, Biotechnology, Dairy, etc. which appeal to a large audience of candidates. Another contributing factor to the large number of candidates is the variety of career types, from manager to technician, and more. Through our Recommend to a Friend tool, over 13,000 jobs were forwarded to family and friends in 2012. Jobs posted required a wide range of education levels. Of those positions that specified a minimum education level, 66% required a bachelor s degree or higher. The majority of job seekers on AgCareers.com had at least an education level of bachelor s degree or higher (63%), the same as 2011. Nearly half of job seekers on AgCareers.com had more than five years of experience. *Numbers in the job report reflect North America (U.S. & Canada) unless otherwise noted. 2
About AgCareers.com AgCareers.com is the leading online job board for agriculture, food, biotechnology, and natural resources. We are dedicated to bringing together employers and candidates through our online career portal. AgCareers.com services companies throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and has a growing international presence. With more than 3,600 new jobs posted each month from agribusiness companies in North America, it is easy to see why candidates continue to use AgCareers.com as their top job search strategy. Although it is recommended, job seekers do not have to create an account with AgCareers.com in order to search or apply to jobs. If they choose to create an account, they may post their resumes for companies to search and seek them. There were almost 3,500 new resumes from North America posted to the AgCareers.com resume database in 2012. There were more than 10 million page views on the AgCareers.com site in 2012. More than 1.6 million visits were made (an increase of 17%), with an average of 44,000 unique visitors each month. Interestingly, 28% of new visits to the AgCareers.com site were made on mobile devices. Nearly 10,000 job applications passed through the AgCareers.com system on average each month. AgCareers.com is focused on attracting active job seekers as well as passive job seekers with the use of email marketing and social media. Our weekly e-newsletter is distributed to more than 182,000 people each week (a growth of 28% in 2012), and the Skill & Trade e-newsletter to over 47,000 subscribers each month. AgCareers.com also regularly connects with thousands of followers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. AgCareers.com s social media following experienced tremendous growth in 2012 as both job seekers and employers were engaged through relevant content, and participated in promotions and contests (see Figure 1). Figure 1 Facebook likes LinkedIn members Twitter followers YouTube views 2011 1,461 771 709 26,675 2012 5,400 1,818 2,606 290,977 % Increase 270% 136% 268% 991% 3
Trends Not only did AgCareers.com experience tremendous growth in social media following in 2012, traffic to the site increased. Visits to www.agcareers.com were up 17% and unique visits increased by 22% when compared to 2011. There was also a significant increase in applications processed in 2012; 43% more applications were sent through the AgCareers.com site in 2012 than in 2011 (see Figure 2 below). Figure 2 140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 Applications Processed 117,894 82,436 2011 1 2012 2 Comparing total North American jobs posted for the past three years, you ll see a yearly increase as demonstrated in Figure 3. Total number of job postings in the United States and Canada approached 44,000, surpassing 2011 s record-high year by 477 jobs. More than 3,600 jobs were posted on AgCareers.com each month on average. Figure 3 North American Job Postings 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 - Jan. Feb. March April May June July August Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. 2012 2011 2010 2012 Total: 43,703 2011 Total: 43,226 2010 Total: 36,656 4
AgCareers.com serves clients across North America and throughout the world. Focusing on the United States, in Figure 4, the top ten ranking states for jobs posted on AgCareers.com in 2012 are shown. Iowa remains the top job posting state, followed by Illinois and Nebraska (same as 2011). Missouri moved up from the 10 th to the 8 th spot in 2012. Texas remains the only non- Midwestern state in the top ten. Figure 4 TOP 10 JOB POSTING STATES State Number of Jobs Posted Iowa 4,637 Illinois 4,264 Nebraska 3,664 Minnesota 3,178 Kansas 2,010 Indiana 1,782 Wisconsin 1,571 Missouri 1,555 South Dakota 1,497 Texas 1,289 The abundance of jobs in the Midwest region is evident with more than 26,000 jobs posted in 2012, or 72% of jobs posted in the United States as shown in Figure 5 on the following page. Midwest includes the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The next largest regions were the South and West with 10% of posted jobs each. See below Figure 5 for a list of states included in each region. 5
Figure 5 Jobs Posted by U.S. Region Southwest 5% Mid-Atlantic 3% West 10% South 10% Midwest 72% New England <1% U.S. Regions Midwest- IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI South- AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, PR, SC, TN, VA, WV Southwest- AZ, NM, OK, TX Mid-Atlantic- DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA New England- CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT West- AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY AgCareers.com has qualified job candidate traffic throughout the United States, however the largest region is the Midwest region or those seeking employment in the states that make up the Midwest region. This is reasonable as applicant location traditionally reflects where the job opportunities reside. Figure 6 on the following page illustrates the breakdown of applicants in 2012 by U.S. region. The Midwest region had the most applicants (48% of total U.S. applicants). The South (23%) jumped ahead of the West (15%) in 2012 applications. 6
Figure 6 U.S. Applicants by Region Southwest 9% Mid-Atlantic 4% New England 1% West 15% Midwest 48% South 23% Job listings on AgCareers.com are categorized by industry type and career type. Employers can categorize their jobs in 69 different agricultural industry types identified by AgCareers.com, from advertising to volunteer work. Figure 7 on the next page shows the top five industry types for jobs posted in each particular region. When we look across all regions, agronomy is the leading industry type, ranked in the top five in all regions and ranked first in two regions. Crop protection/chemicals and equipment/machinery are also both ranked within the top industry types in five of the six regions. In 2012, crop protection/chemicals replaced meat processing in the Southwest region s top five. Equipment/machinery replaced biotechnology in the Mid-Atlantic region s 2012 top-five industry types. 7
Figure 7 Top Industry Types by U.S. Region Mid-Atlantic Midwest Dairy Agronomy 12% General 13% Equipment/Machinery 14% 37% Crop Protection/Chemicals 16% 36% Seed 15% 22% Equipment/Machinery Agronomy 16% 19% General Crop Protection/Chemicals New England South Dairy Biotechnology 25% 7% 4% 39% Agronomy Fertilizer 16% 10% 6% 37% Agronomy Crop Protection/Chemicals 25% Commodities 31% Equipment/Machinery Crop General Southwest West Equipment/Machinery Agronomy 15% 13% 32% Agronomy Biotechnology 13% 11% 42% Crop Protection/Chemicals Beef 20% 20% Grain Crop Protection/Chemicals 15% 19% General Equipment/Machinery 8
Employers also categorize job listings by career type, from academia to warehouse. Figure 8 shows the top five career types in the U.S. for 2012 with their correlating number of jobs posted and the percentage compared to the number of overall jobs posted in 2012. Figure 8 TOP 5 CAREER TYPES # of Jobs % Sales/Marketing 8,099 19% General 6,127 14% Production 3,227 7% Management/Manager 3,142 7% Operator/Operations 1,912 4% TOTALS 22,507 52% The career types included in the top five posted on the AgCareers.com site remained the same as 2011, although production moved up to the third spot and management/manager moved down to the fourth spot. Even though the percentage of sales/marketing positions dropped from 23% to 19% overall, this career type still held on to the leading spot. Sales/marketing career type positions are relevant to the majority of industries. The general category remained in the second spot, as employers chose that category for career type allowing them to collect more applicants. Agribusinesses continue to increase their offerings of internship opportunities for students wanting to pursue careers in agriculture. There was a 17% increase in the number of internship opportunities posted in 2012. There were 1,028 internships posted in 2012, as compared to 875 in 2011. Employers are increasingly specifying internship opportunities as the intern job type to take advantage of the featured internship opportunities page on the AgCareers.com site. According to the 2012 Intern and New Grad Hire report, 33% of new graduates were hired by the companies with whom they had previously interned. The site also features a Recommend this Job to a Friend program, where visitors can forward job postings to others. The continued strength of this program indicates the importance friends and family play in the job search process. More than 13,000 jobs were forwarded to family and friends in 2012, an average of 1,129 per month. AgCareers.com collects data on the educational requirements requested by employers in their job postings. Figure 9 on the next page depicts these requirements as posted by employers. For positions where educational level is specified, 66% require a bachelor s degree or higher. It is important to note that 40% of jobs posted on AgCareers.com do not list a specific minimum 9
education level. Unspecified positions accept a wide range of educational levels based on experience. Almost all positions require a GED or high school diploma even if not stated. Figure 9 Employers' Educational Requirements 2% High School 6% 13% 10% Skilled Trade Certificate 11% College/Associate Diploma 58% Bachelor's Degree Master's Degree Doctorate/PhD Degree *Based on job postings that specify requirement for minimum educational attainment AgCareers.com also collects education status information from applicants. As shown in Figure 10, the majority (63%) of applicants had a bachelor s degree or higher, the same as the previous year. The largest segment of job seekers had a bachelor s degree (44%). The majority of categories remained mostly unchanged from 2011, although the number of applicants with a high school diploma increased from 13% to 17% and the number of applicants not specifying their education level decreased from 10% to 5%. Figure 10 Applicant Education Level Doctorate/PhD 4% Master's Degree 15% Bachelor's Degree 44% College or Associate Diploma 12% Skilled Trade Certificate 3% High School Diploma 17% Not Specified 5% Apprenticeship <1% 10
AgCareers.com is not only a resource for new college graduates, but also professionals who have a more established career history. As illustrated in Figure 11, the largest segment (35%) of AgCareers.com job seekers had 10-plus years of experience. Nearly 50% of job seekers had more than five years of experience which has remained consistent over the past few years. Overall, the experience level of applicants remained very similar to 2011. Figure 11 Applicant Years of Experience 10+ years 35% 6-9 years 10% 1-5 years 31% Less than 1 year 23% 11
Looking Forward In 2012, job postings in the agricultural, food, biotechnology and natural resources industries were plentiful on AgCareers.com, with job postings surpassing 2011 s record-high level. Agriculture companies are anticipating gains and rewarding their employees. Taking data from the AgCareers.com 2012-2013 U.S. Agribusiness HR Review, 92% of companies anticipate salary increases for staff (see Figure 12). Figure 12 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Projected Salary Increases 48.68% 43.42% 7.89% Yes, all staff Yes, some staff No The ranges for projected salary increases vary, with the predominate range being 2.1-3%, consistent with 2011 (see Figure 13). Figure 13 60% 50% Budgeted Salary Increases 51.43% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 17.14% 14.29% 8.57% 4.29% 4% No Increase 0.1-1% 1.1-2% 2.1-3% 3.1-4% 4.1-5% More than 5% 12
Projected retirement numbers were slightly lower in 2012 according to the 2012-2013 U.S. HR Review. Indications show that in the next two years, 50% of companies will have between 1% and 5% of their staff considering retirement, down from 58% in 2011. The outlook for agriculture jobs is good, with nearly 60% of respondents of the U.S. HR Review saying they anticipate their workforce to increase in the next two years (up from 47% in 2011) and 37% expect it to stay the same. Sixty-four percent of respondents said they would increase college/university recruiting in the next 1 to 5 years (roughly the same as 2011) with the majority indicating that was a result of career progression/succession planning, retirement of staff and competition for talent. 13
Summary AgCareers.com s mission continues to be a dedication to bring agriculture-related employers and candidates together. Our services are valued by employers and candidates who use them, which are confirmed by the increased site traffic in 2012. To recap, below are a few of the highlights from the 2012 Agribusiness Job Report: There were nearly 120,000 applications processed in 2012, an increase of 43%. There were almost 40,000 jobs posted by companies in the United States in 2012. The AgCareers.com site averages 44,000 unique users each month. The weekly e-newsletter subscriptions grew 28%, to more than 182,000 in 2012. In 2012, all of the AgCareers.com social media outlets experienced tremendous increases in followers, from 136% to 991% growth. More than 1,100 jobs were forwarded to family and friends each month in 2012. There were more than 26,000 jobs posted in the Midwest (highest region on AgCareers.com). Forty-eight percent of applicants were from the Midwest (highest region for AgCareers.com), followed by the South and West. Nineteen percent of U.S. jobs posted fall under the sales/marketing career type, the largest category. There was a 17% increase in the number of internship opportunities posted in 2012. The majority (63%) of applicants on AgCareers.com had a bachelor s degree or higher and 35% had 10-plus years of experience, indicating we attract a diverse array of applicants with experience. Ninety-two percent of companies that participated in the U.S. HR Review projected staff salary increases in 2012-2013. 14