Job Security Grows in Importance, Career Entry Remains Difficult: Fall 2026 Labor Market Trends

Press release
Job Security Grows in Importance, Career Entry Remains Difficult: Fall 2026 Labor Market Trends

• Job security matters more: For 77%, a secure job is more important than career advancement; 74% currently find it harder to get invited to job interviews
• Where the opportunities are: High demand on stepstone.de in healthcare, social work, skilled trades, and technical fields
• Most future-proof fields of study: Recruiters rank medicine, electrical engineering, and social work at the top
• Career entry remains difficult: Entry-level jobs were down about 33% from the multi-year average in 2025, but up 14% year-over-year in the first half of 2026

Düsseldorf, 16.09.2026. Job security is becoming more important, while career entry remains difficult. At the same time, new and future-proof opportunities are emerging in certain fields. The Stepstone Group's labor market researchers Dr. Christina Langer and Dr. Anna Wittich have identified four current labor market trends for fall 2026, based on recent survey data and Stepstone platform data.32% of employees name a secure job as one of the most important factors in choosing a job, four percentage points more than last year. Only salary is cited more often (59%). For 77%, job security is even more important than career advancement. The reasons lie mainly in the challenging labor market: 74% currently find it harder to even get invited to a job interview, and 65% experience higher requirements than three years ago. At the same time, companies report an ongoing shortage of skilled workers: 46% find recruiting harder than a year ago, and 44% say finding suitable candidates with the required skills is their biggest hurdle.
"The labor market currently offers little incentive to switch jobs. Job seekers report a long road to an interview, let alone a hire. Those who have a job tend to hold on to it," says Dr. Christina Langer, Senior Economist at The Stepstone Group. "For companies, this also means that finding the most sought-after talent takes time, and the best candidates are hard to find. Employers who offer stability and permanent jobs should highlight that."

2. High demand in healthcare, social work, and skilled trades
Despite the overall tight labor market, the skilled trades, healthcare, logistics, and construction sectors show a particularly high number of job postings on stepstone.de. Measured against the deviation from the 2019–2025 average, 2025 shows high demand in areas such as: local truck drivers (+40%), disability care workers (+36%), electricians for energy and building technology (+37%), heating, ventilation, and air conditioning technicians (+17%), and automotive mechatronics technicians (+15%).
"The best job opportunities right now are in skilled trades, technical professions, and healthcare and social work. Craftsmanship and technical understanding are in demand. Direct work with people is also becoming more important. Demand is highest where the work has to be done on-site, and that's not going to change quickly because of AI," says Dr. Anna Wittich, labor market researcher at Stepstone.

3. The most future-proof fields of study, according to recruiters
Every fall, many young people choose their field of study. In a joint study by Stepstone and Studydrive, 455 HR decision-makers rated medicine, electrical engineering, and social work as the most future-proof fields of study. Humanities subjects such as history, English studies, or German studies were named the least future-proof. 58% of surveyed recruiters also say: what's future-proof is what's hard to automate. Regardless of field, practical experience plays a major role in career entry: 42% of young professionals say internships or working as a student assistant significantly eased their entry into the workforce. For 34%, a job held during their studies was their direct ticket to being hired on.
"Medicine and social work require deep expertise and direct work with people. Electrical engineering requires particular technical understanding. The shortage of skilled workers in all three fields is real, and the economy and society urgently need these people. That's not going to change anytime soon," says Dr. Anna Wittich. "The ranking shows what recruiters consider future-proof, not necessarily what pays off in career terms. What matters is engaging early with possible career paths. Anyone with genuine interest in a subject shouldn't just look at rankings. The real questions are: What do I actually enjoy? What careers does this degree open up? What's the demand for that profession? And can I gain practical experience in it during my studies?"

4. Career entry remains difficult
The share of jobs for career starters on stepstone.de was about 33% below the multi-year average measured since 2019 in 2025, the lowest level since measurements began. In the first half of 2026, that share was back up about 14% year-over-year. A first positive signal, but not yet reason to sound the all-clear.
"We're seeing a sustained decline in the entry-level segment that runs across all traditional knowledge professions. University graduates in particular are often stuck in a vicious cycle: no job without experience, no experience without a job. AI and the economic downturn are hitting career entry at a sensitive point, because the classic junior tasks that entry-level workers have traditionally learned from are the first to be affected," says Dr. Christina Langer. "Cutting junior positions today saves money in the short term but costs tomorrow's skilled workforce. A gap is forming right now that won't be easy to close in the next economic recovery. Entry-level jobs need to be rethought: dual programs, mentoring, early project responsibility, and learning environments where AI is a tool from day one, with the goal of teaching new graduates to use AI productively and critically."

Full ranking of the most future-proof fields of study, according to recruiters

Rank	Field of Study	Rating
1	Medicine (general medicine)	4.09
2	Electrical engineering / electronics	3.91
3	Social work	3.75
4	Computer science	3.74
5	Education (pedagogy)	3.70
6	Psychology	3.64
7	Civil engineering	3.55
8	Social sciences / social welfare studies	3.52
9	Law	3.50
10	Health sciences / health management	3.41
11	Mechanical engineering	3.39
12	Industrial engineering	3.37
13	Biology	3.27
14	Chemistry	3.26
15	Business law	3.13
16	Mathematics	3.08
17	Physics	3.07
18	International business management	3.04
19	Economics / business administration	3.03
20	Architecture	2.81
21	Business administration (BWL)	2.64
22	Political science	2.55
23	Graphic design / communication design	2.22
24	German studies	2.16
25	English studies	2.14
26	History	1.92

Methodology: 455 HR decision-makers were asked to rate the 26 most popular fields of study in Germany on their future-proofness (scale 1–5).

About Dr Christina Langer
Dr Christina Langer is Senior Economist at The Stepstone Group, an economist and labour market researcher focusing on the future of work, generative AI and skills development. Alongside her role at Stepstone, she is an Economist at the ifo Institute and a Digital Fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, part of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. Previously, she conducted research there as a Postdoctoral Researcher on the impact of artificial intelligence, new technologies and changing skill requirements on the labour market, companies and employees. Her work has been published internationally and has been featured by outlets including The New York Times. Throughout her media appearances, discussions and presentations, she combines scientific evidence with practical recommendations for companies, policymakers and the wider public.

About Dr Anna Wittich
Dr Anna Wittich is a labour market researcher at The Stepstone Group, where she studies job search behaviour, applications, recruiting, and job satisfaction. In her work, she analyses how the expectations, decisions and experiences of employees, candidates and companies in the labor market are changing. Based on Stepstone data and studies, she she contextualises developments within career paths, application behaviour, willingness to change jobs, working conditions and modern HR practices. In media appearances, talks and analyses, she combines data-based labour market insights with practical recommendations for employees, jobseekers and companies.

About the data
The figures on job security and application experiences come from the Hiring Trends Update 2026, a representative survey of 6,114 employees and 800 HR decision-makers in Germany (fieldwork: April 23 to May 6, 2026). The candidate sample is representative of the German workforce by age, gender, and education level. Data collection was conducted by Stepstone's labor market research team. The figures on demand by occupational field are based on an analysis of all job postings on Stepstone since 2019: the share of each occupational field in all postings in 2025 compared with the average share for the years 2019 to 2025. The figures on the future-proofness of fields of study and on career entry come from the joint study "Entry Level Jobs" by Stepstone and Studydrive, for which around 4,500 people in Germany were surveyed in November 2025, including 754 students, 331 young professionals, and 455 HR decision-makers. The overall sample is representative of the German workforce by age, gender, and education. For the special analysis of career entry, all job postings on stepstone.de from January 2020 to June 2026 were analyzed. Entry-level positions were defined as postings containing terms such as "trainee," "entry-level," "graduate," or "completed vocational training." The share of these postings among all postings was then compared with the multi-year average. For this career-entry analysis, the calculation methods and terminology used in the platform data analyses were refined. Any deviations from previous analyses are due to this.

About The Stepstone Group 
The Stepstone Group is a leading global digital recruitment platform that connects companies with the right talent and helps people find the right job. AI-driven job marketplaces and programmatic-powered marketing solutions connect more than 130 million job applications with about 70,000 customers every year. The Stepstone Group operates in more than 10 countries - including Stepstone in Germany, Appcast in the USA and Totaljobs in the UK. The company is headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany and employs more than 2,500 people worldwide. For more information: www.thestepstonegroup.com/english

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press@stepstone.com