New Report Warns US Workforce Risks Losing its Edge as Mobility Hits Lowest Point Since 2016

Guild and Lightcast launch a first-of-its-kind Talent Resilience Index, revealing workforce mobility as a critical measure of resilience and US competitiveness

Guild, in partnership with Lightcast, released the Talent Resilience Index (TRI), a first-of-its-kind, quantitative benchmark of workforce mobility and adaptability across the US labor market.

America’s workforce faces converging pressures from technological disruption driven by AI, demographic shifts, and economic uncertainty. In this new era, resilience will determine whether workers, businesses, and the economy adapt or fall behind. While leaders understand and recognize the importance of resilience, they have lacked a shared definition and a consistent way to measure it. Designed for business leaders, policymakers, and America’s workforce, the Talent Resilience Index is a tool to guide decisions about the jobs, skills, and investments that will shape our economic future.

Drawing on Census Current Population Survey (CPS) data, Lightcast’s analysis of US job postings, its proprietary labor market data, and social profile databases, Guild’s AI disruption impact analysis, and highlighting real-world examples from leading employers like Salesforce, OSF HealthCare, and Regions Bank, the TRI pinpoints where worker mobility is advancing or stalling, highlighting the resilient jobs and skills shaping US competitiveness. It reveals workforce mobility – the ability of workers to adapt, move, and evolve to fill in-demand jobs – as one of the clearest indicators of resilience in action, and a key contributor to economic growth.

According to the TRI, workforce mobility alone generated an average of $221 billion in additional annual individual earnings between 2016 and 2024— equivalent to 1% of US GDP — peaking at $255 billion in 2023. The report reveals that workers who experience mobility see a 15% annual earnings increase – roughly a $7,000 per capita boost compared to the US median salary of $47,000 — more than triple a typical merit raise and outpacing inflation. But with workforce mobility at its lowest point since 2016, there is a resilience gap growing. The country risks squandering billions in potential growth and leaving the workforce and businesses unprepared for the disruptions already reshaping the economy.

“Workforce mobility helps us to determine whether workers, companies, and the economy are prepared to adapt to disruption or fall behind,” said Bijal Shah, CEO of Guild. “At Guild, we see the urgency from the country’s leading employers and policymakers to ensure their workforces are prepared for the future. The Talent Resilience Index provides the definitions, benchmarks, best practices – and above all, data, to help leaders build pathways that future-proof their workforces and drive long-term, sustainable growth.”

The TRI quantifies resilience by combining seven core variables into two measures: mobility activity (how frequently workers move laterally or upward), and mobility impact (the economic value created by those moves). It also identifies four “intelligence enablers” that show where investments in skills and jobs deliver the greatest returns. The TRI serves as a roadmap to help business leaders unlock productivity and profitability, policymakers design targeted interventions, and workers chart adaptable and durable careers.

“Workforce mobility is a clear indicator to determine how the labor market is adapting under stress,” said Ron Hetrick, Principal Economist at Lightcast. “What the Talent Resilience Index shows is that mobility doesn’t just benefit individual workers – it creates measurable gains in productivity, earnings, and competitiveness across the economy. At a time when the labor market is constantly changing and facing disruption, understanding where mobility is stalling and where it can be strengthened is essential for making informed investments in talent and for sustaining long-term economic growth.”

Key Findings on Workforce Mobility

• Regions differ: New England leads the nation in overall mobility, sustaining strong internal career ladders even as many workers leave the region. By contrast, the South attracts some of the largest population inflows in the country, but shows among the lowest levels of internal mobility.

• Industries diverge: Finance, insurance, and professional services lead in internal career progression, giving them an edge in building resilient talent pipelines. Retail and manufacturing remain reliant on external hiring, with manufacturing especially exposed as 27% of its workforce is nearing retirement. Healthcare underscores both urgency and potential with over 16 million projected openings across essential and advanced specialties in the next two years.

• Education shapes resilient pathways: Workers with less formal education move externally more often, creating resilience through upward and lateral mobility. Workers with more advanced degrees tend to be anchored in specialized roles, leading to more internal mobility - often in resilient roles.

• Income divides: Just 1% of workers earning under $50,000 advanced internally in 2024, compared to 4% of workers earning over $150,000. High earners also saw an 8% increase in external occupation changes between 2018-2024, underscoring the retention challenge for employers at the very moment when keeping critical talent is most strategic.

• Internal vs. external mobility: Workers who move internally within their company stay 60–65% longer than external hires. But internal mobility is stagnant, accounting for only 9% of total mobility in 2024. This highlights a structural imbalance: companies often emphasize internal mobility in theory, and the strategic value is there, but in practice, most advancement and lateral movement still occurs externally.

The Resilient Jobs and Skills of the Future

To help leaders understand where to invest in workforce mobility, the TRI unpacks the resilient jobs and skills of the future, uncovering the following:

• AI is an enabler: While AI often gets framed as a replacement for human work, TRI shows that it can actually increase job resilience—provided workers are equipped with the skills to use it.

• Healthcare is critical and constrained: Demand is soaring, while the population ages—making it the most resilient and fastest growing sector.

• Geography matters: Some of the fastest-growing, most resilient roles, such as truck and bus drivers, are inherently localized, creating unique opportunities for place-based workforce resilience strategies.

• Human-centered roles endure: Jobs requiring critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and legal judgment resist automation.

• Blended skillsets will define the future: The most future-proof skills are hybrids—solution sales, patient education, AI diagnostics, and architecture-level software design—integrating human and technical strengths.

• The new core of business: Process improvement, strategy, cloud, and solution engineering are becoming the backbone of organizational adaptability in an AI-driven economy.

• Precision medicine is on the rise: Advanced specialties like oncology, medical imaging, and nuclear medicine are growing as diagnostic and treatment technologies accelerate.

To download and read the full report, click here.

Research Methodology

The Talent Resilience Index is powered by one of the most comprehensive labor market datasets available, including Census CPS data on workforce transitions; Lightcast’s analysis of 197 million US job postings drawn from its global database of more than 3 billion, its core labor market information (LMI) and employment projection models, over 158 million US professional social profiles, and Guild’s proprietary AI disruption impact analysis. Combined with case studies from leading employers, this foundation enables the TRI to reveal where workers are moving—or stalling—into resilient jobs and skills of the future, offering a trusted benchmark for resilience across the workforce.

About Guild

Guild partners with the country’s most innovative employers, including Chipotle, Target, Walgreens, JPMorgan Chase, Hilton, Spectrum, PepsiCo, Tyson, and more, to build the talent needed for today and a resilient workforce for tomorrow. Guild helps employers identify, develop, and mobilize internal talent — enabling workers to gain skills for in-demand roles and companies to stay agile. By connecting employees to real-world learning, coaching, and career support, and providing companies with actionable talent insights, Guild transforms all talent into high-impact contributors and positions companies for long-term, sustainable growth. For more information, visit https://www.guild.com.

About Lightcast

Lightcast is the global leader in labor market intelligence, empowering smarter decisions for businesses, education institutions, and governments worldwide. With the world’s most comprehensive database—spanning over 3 billion job postings, 500 million career profiles, and 100+ government sources—Lightcast delivers unparalleled insight into skills, jobs, companies, professional profiles, and workforce trends across 165 countries. Our proprietary taxonomies, advanced AI, and expert guidance transform complex data into clear, actionable intelligence. Lightcast has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, and India. Learn more at lightcast.io.