The startup job market is bouncing back, showing signs of stability after a sharp decrease in listings throughout last year.
That’s one key takeaway from a report released Thursday by NGP Capital. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture firm surveyed 7,500 U.S. startups and small-sized companies and tracked the number of new job posts from January 2022 to March 2023.
Last year, startups faced challenges including a slowdown in venture capital funding and pressure to minimize costs in response to the broader market downturn.
However, NGP’s report shows startup hiring activity is slowly rebounding.
Startup job postings declined by 52% year-over-year, with listings falling from 19,000 in April 2022 to 9,000 in March.
But over the past three months, the firm found that there have been consistently more than 9,000 startup job openings, indicating the total number of listings may have reached a low point.
“While in 2022 startup jobs experienced a sharp decline, decreasing more than 50% since the April 2022 peak, seed hiring held steady, and the job market is showing signs of stabilization,” NGP wrote.
Venture-backed startups raised a total of $209 billion last year, down 36% from the year prior, according to a funding analysis by Ernst & Young. With the slower investment pace, many startups tampered their hiring plans, or trimmed headcount.
More than 180,000 tech employees have reportedly lost their jobs this year alone, according to Layoffs.fyi. Some Startups that have been able to hire are taking advantage of the larger hiring pool.
Early-stage companies posted 190,000 job ads between January 2022 and March 2023, with more than 50% of the total openings originating from Bay Area and New York City, according to NGP’s report.
Those two metros saw significant year-over-year declines last year, with job openings in those metros dropping by 49% and 55%, respectively.
Meanwhile, Seattle’s startup hiring activity remained steady during that same period, with only a 4% decline from the first quarter of 2022. Early-stage companies in the region advertised more than 8,350 job openings, representing around 4% of the U.S. startup job market.
Here are some of the other highlights from NGP Capital’s report:
- Seed-stage companies have maintained a relatively stable pace of hiring, suggesting that the brunt of funding challenges has been felt by later-stage companies.
- Enterprise software positions accounted for 16% of Seattle’s total startup job openings; health-tech and life sciences accounted for 13%, and fintech accounted for 11%.
- Seattle had one of the highest percentage of transportation and mobility related tech job openings compared to other cities.
