When business leaders and economists talk about the labor market and human resources, it’s natural to focus on things that are happening—promotions, layoffs, and hiring, for example. But what about the rest of the time, when there’s no major activity and it’s just business as usual?
Defining nothing
We tracked the month-to-month inactivity of the workforce, looking at the gaps between major events that keep HR professionals busy.
We took “nothing” to be any month in which an employee didn’t get married or divorced, didn’t quit, didn’t take parental leave, wasn’t hired or fired, didn’t go part time, and didn’t get a promotion, demotion, new title, raise, or pay cut.
This measurement, of course, is imperfect. It doesn’t account for everything HR does, because a lot of HR challenges—think workplace conflicts, employee health concerns, and career development—can’t be measured in payroll data.
But by tracking individual experiences, a high level of nothing corresponds to a large fraction of employees experiencing no big change. In any given month, 84 percent of U.S. workers experience nothing. Pay, job titles, marital status, and all other metrics are unchanged.
Nothing is on the rise
The incidence of nothing has been growing since the pandemic. And while a whole lot of nothing is happening during parts of the year, administrative work tied to employment activity picks up in December. That’s when the least nothing—the most something—happens. Employers are looking to the coming year, adjusting pay, promoting people, and planning hiring or layoffs.
The metrics where the least nothing happens are annual base pay (89 percent of workers don’t see a pay change in any given month) and employment status (93 percent). Work and marital status don’t change for 95 percent of workers.
November is the month for the most nothing, for the simple reason that it precedes December. HR professionals are likely to defer some November activity to December.
What state has the most nothing?
HR professionals are kept pretty busy in North Dakota, which has the most administrative activity across metrics. Hawaii has the most nothing for employee status, job title, manager status, and work state. The high rate of work state nothing might be due in part to the logistical challenges of moving to and from the Hawaiian Islands. Washington, D.C., has the least administrative activity for marital status and full- and part-time status.
New York has the highest amount of nothing for annual base pay, but that amount of nothing—91 percent—corresponds to almost exactly one month a year of change to the annual base pay, so this can be interpreted as New York being the state where employees are most likely to see a pay raise or cut once a year.
Which industry has the most nothing?
Changes happen the most often in accommodation and food services (NAICS 72) which has the least amount of nothing across all metrics. Utilities (NAICS 22) has the most nothing for part- and full-time workers, work state, manager status, marital status, and employment status. Public administration (NAICS 92) has the most nothing for job titles, and finance and insurance (NAICS 52) has the most nothing for annual base pay. Retailers (NAICS 45) deserve special mention for having the second-to-least nothing across all metrics.
Nothing’s wrong with this analysis, but …
Just like labor markets and hiring have seasonal patterns, so does administrative activity. The increase in nothing we found is due partly to less stuff happening—fewer raises, less turnover. But most of it can be traced to nothing becoming more clustered in certain months of the year.
One should be careful reading too much into spikes or dips in the rate of nothing. But over time, administrative inaction could be a useful indicator of labor market change.
