There’s a huge boom in signing bonuses as a hiring incentive — across industries

As businesses struggle to bring in new workers during “The Great Resignation,” they’re luring potential employees by offering incentives like huge signing bonuses, retention bonuses, and even one-time cash payments, according to new research.

Bonuses are way up

Indeed’s Hiring Lab found that about 4.1% of job postings advertised hiring incentives on the company’s website on June 18, which is more than double the numbers in July 2020, where only 1.8% offered a package.

While the research warns that only a “small minority” of job ads offer incentives, the trend first picked up in the spring when there was talk of a labor shortage across several industries.

Where hiring incentives are offered

Leading the incentives charge is the driving sector. As of June 18, 16% of driving careers offer bonuses to prospective workers, a 4.6% change since the beginning of the year.

With parents heading back to the office, childcare gigs are upping their incentives too; 7.3% of childcare jobs now offer some type of bonuses, a 3.8% change in the same time frame.

Other healthcare jobs like personal care and home health, nursing, and medicine (physicians and surgeons) also saw significant spikes from the beginning of the year, according to research.

The only sector that saw a decline was veterinary careers, which decreased its bonus offerings by 0.3%.

What people are searching for

Job seekers are actively looking for jobs that mention hiring incentives, too. The data said that searches for hiring incentives per million job searches on the week of June 18 rose 134% from the seven days ending Jan. 1.

Researchers said that job seekers zeroed in on keywords such as hiring and signing bonuses, which points to leverage being in the job seeker’s favor.

How much are they offering?

While it remains unknown how much individual firms are offering, some companies — like Amazon — have publicly said that they will provide signing bonuses to potential hires. The company announced in May that it would hire 75,000 workers at its fulfillment and logistics centers and offer $1,000 signing bonuses to employees in many locations.

Fast-casual chain Chipotle announced an employee referral bonus program, which can net employees up to $750 when apprentices or general managers are hired.