Economy-wide breakdown
- At the start of 2025, the labor market looks solid. It grew at a steady rate, averaging 180,000 new jobs a month over a three-month average. Wage growth continues to moderate, trending towards 3.5% as inflationary wage pressures recede and the unemployment rate remains near a historical low of 4.2%.
- Under the hood, though, there are some issues. For one, hiring is very healthcare heavy. In March, 40% of private employment growth was concentrated in healthcare and private education. Outside of healthcare, most industries are experiencing uneven growth grappling with elevated interest rates and heightened uncertainty about trade policy.
- On April 2nd— or “Liberation Day”— President Trump issued a sweeping increase of tariffs that will bring the average U.S. tariff rate to the highest point in more than a century. It includes a 10% across-the-board tariff, affecting all foreign goods imports. The impending fallout from retaliatory tariffs from U.S. trading partners across Europe and Asia will radically shift employment growth in goods-oriented industries like retail, transportation and manufacturing as consumer good prices rise in response to tariffs. Compromises may be reached, and tariffs levels could be lowered.
- In March, Appcast’s Chief Economist Andrew Flowers presented our outlook on the economy in the face of sweeping policy changes. Our base case is a slowdown in economic growth due to immigration and trade policy changes, but not a recession. However, over the past three months consumers’ expectations of inflation have risen rapidly while sentiment around the business environment has deteriorated – a serious warning sign about the future health of the economy. This environment is highly dynamic, and by the time you read this it may be out of date.
Read our economy-wide breakdown of the latest numbers.
Employment Trends
Recent readings reflect a continued easing of supply chain pressures, maintaining levels significantly lower than the peaks observed during 2021 and 2022.
The Global Supply Chain Pressure Index measures stress or disruptions in global supply chains by combining data from several areas including shipping costs, delivery times, backlogs & purchasing manager indices. The GSCPI has declined to a 0.2% rate since its peak of 4.4% in December of 2021.
Now that we’re past the first quarter of 2025, tariffs and their impact on goods prices are expected to become a key focus. In the coming months, we’ll gain a clearer picture of their effects.
Last year began with strong job growth but it slowed in the middle part of 2024. However, 2025 has started on a promising note, continuing the late-2024 momentum—with April marking an increase of 22,900 jobs added from March’s growth.
The transportation and warehousing sectors present a varied employment picture, as certain subsectors see expansion while others contract.
The transit and ground passenger sector continues to grow at nearly 5% (slightly down from last quarter’s 6% growth). Air transportation continues its cooling from the past few years but shows potential signs of modest growth now at 2.3%.
Warehousing and storage growth is slowly decreasing (1.2%) which is near the historical low. Truck transportation is starting to show signs of potentially stronger growth in the next quarter—but currently remains in the same dip from early 2024.
Wage Trends
Wages for transportation and warehousing workers are starting to cool with job openings rising. Air transportation workers have seen their wages steadily decrease from early 2024. Similarly, transit & ground passenger transportation worker wages continue to cool at just over 1%.
On the other hand, truck transportation and warehousing & storage workers have seen increases in wage growth. Warehousing & storage yields around a 3% increase while truck transportation shows the largest gains at 3.7%.
Openings and Turnover Trends
Over the past two years, the job openings rate has seen a steep decline — falling from a peak of 7% in late 2021.
In the second quarter of 2025, job openings saw a slight uptick to 3.7%, edging up from the previous month. Quit rates remain steady and aligned with pre-COVID levels, well below the pandemic peak of around 4%.
The slowdown in the labor market movement has contributed to a decline in the hiring rate, now at 3.7%. Layoffs remain infrequent but have been creeping up, reaching a year-to-date high of 1.8%.
Recruitment Marketing Trends
The term “long” or “ATS apply” refers to the conventional application process, requiring applicants to manually submit their tailored application documents and personal details through the company’s website or an applicant tracking system (ATS). In many cases, applicants are required to create a company-specific account.
On the other hand, “easy apply” refers to a swift application process on a job board, often conducted through a smartphone. With a single click, essential information like the resume is transmitted directly to the company. Due to the simplicity of this application method, easy-apply metrics are not directly comparable to those of the “long” or ATS apply. The metrics are therefore presented separately.
Long Apply
Recruiting costs have been trending upward with apply rates, cost-per-application (CPA) and cost-per-click (CPC) increasing. The median CPC remains steady below $1.00, a level that has held for over a year and some change. However, CPAs have slightly risen again reaching just over $12.50.
Although apply rates have increased—meaning more candidates are completing ads—CPAs have increased as well. Both of these increases could be the result of a higher cost-per-click. Even though the application rates are better, if you’re paying significantly more for each click, your total cost might still be going up faster than your conversion rate is improving.
Easy Apply
Recruiting costs for easy-to-apply methods have remained stable with better performance in cost-per-applications and apply rates. Cost-per-clicks are averaging $0.89, an uptick from last quarter’s $0.78. Efficiency is driven by high engagement, with nearly one-in-three job seekers completing an application.
Even though funnels are performing slightly better (higher apply rate, lower CPA), more advertisers may be bidding on the same audience/keywords, which slightly drives up CPC. Employers are paying more per click, but because the funnel is more efficient, it’s still ending up with a marginally lower CPA.
Recruitment Marketing Forecast
Using Appcast’s weekly historical CPA data, Recruitonomics has created a two-quarter forecast of median cost-per-application for the transportation and warehousing sector. Given the mostly neutral short-term outlook for the industry, our forecasts predict that CPAs will remain in the $12-15 range for the foreseeable future.
What does this mean for Transportation and Warehousing?
For recruiters, there are many unknowns in transportation and warehousing. There is uncertainty around tariffs and federal policy, and how that will impact hiring. However, the transportation and warehousing sector is stronger today than it was in the first half of the decade. There is less pressure on supply chains, and employment growth has been sustainable. The impacts of these new challenges will be more clear in the coming months.
Traditional application methods and easy apply both demonstrate cost efficiencies, with record-low CPAs, driven by higher application completion rates. Looking ahead, recruiters can expect stable costs, but should be ready to adapt to fit shifting policy and potential consumer spending changes.
Forecasting Methodology
Cost-per-application (CPA) is forecasted two quarters ahead using the previous two years’ worth of one-month moving average data. A combination of ARIMA, exponential smoothing, and seasonal naïve models are used to create an ensemble forecast. The forecast provides both the 95th percentile confidence intervals, indicating the likelihood that each value will be within the CPA range provided.