Every day, the Instawork platform handles thousands of transactions involving businesses and hourly professionals, generating a huge amount of data on hourly pay as well as other aspects of the labor market. This report summarizes some of the major trends in demographics, roles, and worker constraints in regions across the United States.
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The data are also compiled into the Instawork Pay Signal Index (PSI) and indexed trends in hourly pay. Because businesses can book shifts in advance on the Instawork platform, the metrics include forward-looking data for the current month as well. Please refer to the appendix for explanations of the methods behind each metric.
The labor market as a whole looked slightly weaker in December, though demand for flexible labor continued to push up hourly rates in some industries. The overall balance of changes in pay saw rates fall slightly:
Our in-app surveys track Pros' labor market situations on a monthly basis. For details on methods and questionnaires, please see the Methodological Appendix below.
In December the differences between the shares of Pros with full-time and part-time jobs and the shares of Pros who wanted those jobs were back to their highs of April 2023:
The drop for full-time jobs in November was partially attributed to a higher share of new Pros who already had full-time jobs. But the newer figures suggest that the labor market was weakening in December, even for part-time work, despite holiday hiring.
In parallel with these results, the share of Pros wanting 51 hours of work or more minus the share who could get those hours rebounded sharply, and the difference for 41-50 hours of work also rose to another new high:
In addition, Pros with 30 hours or fewer in the reference week were particularly dissatisfied. These data again suggest additional pressure on household budgets, with workers looking for more hours to make ends meet.
In December we also asked Pros what sorts of working situations they needed in the current labor market:
Given that these responses came from Pros who were looking to work Instawork shifts, the 36% who said they only needed a full-time job is an enormous share. These Pros would not be looking for Instawork shifts if they had full-time jobs. Almost a quarter said they would have to work multiple jobs regardless. Just 21% of Pros said they preferred to work multiple jobs at the same time.
The share of men among Pros working shifts rose again in December, as did the share of Pros who identified as Hispanic/Latino:
Hourly pay at businesses posting shifts for production looked set to increase in December but ended up staying flat, and now the early data again suggest a spate of increases in January. In other sectors, changes in pay are expected to be roughly in balance between increases and decreases:
