Thank you for being one of the first 12,544 members and supporting PeerSignal research. Welcome back to my almost-weekly newsletter where I share data and examples to help you study B2B sales and marketing.

Last week I announced Keyplay and our $3M seed funding. Thank you for all the replies, comments, and support!

Next time you login to app.peersignal.org, you'll notice a few improvements in the layout and organization of resources -- especially for those of you who enjoy our homepage and pricing page screenshot galleries. 📸🤓

In this newsletter I'll cover the latest hiring tracker data. Reminder: This is refreshed monthly and as PeerSignal member, you have access to the full list of companies with open roles, links to their careers page, and dozens of signals to sort/filter the list.

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If you rely on LinkedIn for SaaS news or recently stumbled across this chart or this list, it looks bleak.

Certainty the tech news is negative. November tech layoffs were 2X higher than any other month this year. More than 150K tech workers have been laid off in 2022 so far.

However, much of the data and conversation focuses on big tech.

​Startups are a different beast.​

I can't say that our report for November is all ponies and rainbows. Reductions were the worst we've seen since July. But if you dig deeper, you see that the pain is not evenly distributed. There are many companies still investing in growth, many startups still recruiting and hiring aggressively, and many sub-segments that are likely to thrive even as the macro tech market suffers.

Silver Linings (Hiring) Playbook

The layoff story changes when you zero in on small and growth-stage tech. Tech is still growing, just slower.

Yes, we’re seeing 5% more headcount decreases than last month. We’re also seeing net positive headcount for the year.

I think of this a tech's return to rigor.

Half of B2B SaaS companies increased headcount in November

22% of the B2B SaaS companies tracked in PeerSignal decreased headcount last month.

On the other side, 50% increased headcount, up 9% from October.

There are more people working in tech than in 2021

In fact, there are now 64,591 more tech employees across our entire B2B Software Index since April 2022. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is seeing the same trend in the macro. Overall, tech employment grew by 207,200 in 2022.

Tech workers appear to be finding new roles fast

Not all sectors are being hit as hard as tech right now and unemployment is at a 50-year low of 3.7%.

As a result, 72% of laid off tech workers found new jobs within three months. Even more surprising, a little over half of them landed higher-paying roles.

Of course, worker demand is not equal across roles – salespeople and software engineers have the easiest time finding a new jobs post-layoff with 79% finding new roles within three months. Marketing is close behind at 76%. HR specialists are having the toughest time at 58%.

Remote-first companies attract more talent

Despite the downturn, tech workers are holding their ground. Skeptical that return to office (RTO) is a necessary measure in this new economy, many are holding out for flexible work arrangements.

According to LinkedIn data, remote postings had shrunk from about 25% to 14% of U.S. jobs post-pandemic. Yet the remaining remote roles are drawing 52% of applications.

Considering many startup roles are remote by default, this could be a competitive advantage for small tech. Especially as Twitter and other big tech giants mandate returns.

GTM recruiting movement

You'd expect a lot of GTM teams to hire slower in this market. But looking at the open roles in our index M/M, we see that there is a mix bag. 42% of our B2B SaaS company index had no changes in open roles this month -- i.e. the same number of sales & marketing job posts as last month. 33% decreased and 25% actually increased the number of open roles.

Sales and marketing recruiting has declined slightly more than the aggregate over the past three months, -4% since September compared to -1% across all tech roles.

I don't make a habit of trying to predict how this will look in the future.

Personally, I'm watching to see how all the big tech talent coming into the market changes startup recruiting. It's been a hard task to compete with Meta and Amazon compensation packages for the last few years. Maybe startups will start to look more attractive? Or maybe we'll see a flood of people entering the creator economy or starting the next generation of SaaS?

We'll definitely keep tracking and surfacing the B2B SaaS companies that continue to invest in growth.

Have more questions or feedback? Reply or join the conversation on LinkedIn. ​

I read all replies.

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Best,

Adam

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