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.
Starting this month, we are presenting reorganized, rebalanced, and re-indexed statistics with July 2022 as their base, for greater ease of use.
The labor market as a whole looked steady in January, with some strengthening reported by our Pros in our labor market surveys. Businesses raised and lowered pay in roughly equal numbers. Pay raises are expected to pick up slightly in February:
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 January, our Pros had a somewhat easier time finding full-time and part-time jobs, but there was more scarcity in other forms of temporary work besides shifts on the Instawork platform:
Accordingly, Pros had an easier time finding more than 40 hours of work per week in January. There was increasing difficulty for Pros who wanted to work 31-40 hours. The only note of caution came from Pros working 30 hours or fewer — as in December, many more Pros had these hours than wanted them:
In January we also asked Pros about their outlook for the labor market in 2024. A third were uncertain about their reply, and slightly more expected a weaker labor market than those expecting greater ease in finding jobs:
These results jive with economists' outlook for a mildly weakening labor market. But if the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates and slows its quantitative tightening campaign in the first half of the year, the labor market might still strengthen again.
The share of men among Pros working shifts rose again in January, as did the share of Pros who identified as Hispanic/Latino, which is near its all-time high:
After a long, steep uphill climb during the past few years, hourly pay in food service and hospitality is finally stabilizing and even declining in some roles. More businesses are poised to lower pay in February, as in the previous two months:
Hourly pay rates on the Instawork platform for front-of-house roles are stable or gently falling:
The same is true for back-of-house roles, though pay here is rather steadier and less volatile:
Hourly pay for cleaning roles has been sliding in recent months. Custodial pay may stabilize, but the overall expectation is for more declines:
