For veterinary medicine, a jobseekers’ market

If you’re thinking about looking for a new job, here’s some good news: It’s a jobseekers’ market.

As today’s Chart of the Month shows, veterinary professionals are in high demand – and have been for more than two years. Based on data compiled from the AVMA Veterinary Career Center, the number of available jobs has outstripped the number of new jobseekers consistently since at least January 2019.

Understand the numbers

The Veterinary Career Center numbers reveal a variance between the supply of available veterinary jobs and potential employees who are actively seeking new positions. At no point since January 2019 have there been fewer than 3.7 posted jobs for every active jobseeker. Most recently, in April of this year, there were a whopping 12.5 jobs available for every new jobseeker.

What’s more, a detailed breakdown of the numbers shows more jobs than jobseekers in every employment category. Regardless whether you’re a veterinarian, veterinary technician or assistant, or other type of team member, there consistently have been more jobs than active jobseekers in all categories from at least 2019 until now. Here are the detailed number of jobs available nationwide for each employment category in the Veterinary Career Center during that time period:

• Veterinarians: 18.5 jobs/jobseeker
• Technicians and assistants: 5.9 jobs/jobseeker
• Other: 12.0 jobs/jobseeker 

Those are national numbers, of course. The situation varies state by state and in local job markets, and also depends on your particular species interest, specialization, or experience level. You can see current veterinary jobs available in your area by using the search filters on the Veterinary Career Center job board.

What does it mean?

So what does this mean for veterinary professionals? Here are a few key takeaways for both jobseekers and hiring managers:

• It's a good time to be looking for a job if you think you're ready for a change. It's a jobseekers' market, offering more employment options and giving jobseekers extra bargaining power. 
• Employers looking to hire new employees might want to look at overall benefits offerings as well as financial compensation while trying to attract talent. Consider whether you can be flexible with hours, or willing to negotiate starting dates or benefits with interested candidates. Use the Veterinary Career Center's free tools to assess and build your brand as an employer and make yourself more attractive to new employees.
• If your veterinary practice is hiring or considering hiring veterinarians, take a look first at how you’re using your veterinary technicians and other team members. Is everyone on the team working to their full potential, and are you taking advantage of all of their skills? Do you have veterinarians doing work that technicians could perform, or technicians doing work that doesn’t require their technical training? When we make full use of all employees’ skills, our practices are more efficient and our employees are more challenged and satisfied. AVMA’s resource on utilizing veterinary technicians can get you started.

Don’t miss: Virtual career fair this week

Whether you're a potential jobseeker, practice owner, or hiring manager, you won’t want to miss the Veterinary Career Center’s online career fair happening this Thursday, May 20, 2021. This four-hour event will connect jobseekers and employers in real time to make new contacts, explore immediate opportunities, and even conduct one-on-one interviews – all online. More than 150 employers are signed up to participate, and potential jobseekers can attend at whatever time is convenient between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Central Time.

Reserve your seat for the career fair now.