Fast Hire Index 2025: the US States and Industries that Hire the Quickest

Would you relocate to Hawaii if it meant getting hired seven times faster? Or trade your college degree dreams for a blue-collar job that guarantees more job openings, rapid employment, and long-term security? In a job market being reshaped by economic challenges, increases in layoffs, and technological shifts, speed is the competitive advantage, especially with employees facing financial pressures and tough job market competition. Jobseeker’s new "Fast Hire Index" reveals where your chances to land a job quickly are highest, and some answers might surprise you.

How We Created the Fast Hire Index

Our brand-new Fast Hire Index was created using employment and hiring data from three trusted datasets from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics:

• JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey),
• LAUS (Local Area Unemployment Statistics), and
• Employment Projections (2022–2032).

These three datasets help us create an estimate of the time to hire. From the three datasets, these key metrics contribute to our Fast Hire Index:

• Openings-to-hires ratio (the number of vacancies compared to the number of roles being filled between January and May 2025)
• Projected employment growth rate (the expected growth in jobs in each industry between 2023 and 2033)
• Unemployment rate (the unemployment rate in each industry in May 2025)

The lower the openings-to-hires ratio, the faster job vacancies are being filled. The higher the projected growth, the higher the level of opportunity for employment, while the higher the unemployment rate, the more competition jobseekers potentially face. Using these key metrics, we created a standardised index for quick comparison between industry sectors and geographical areas. The final index is scaled from 0 to 10, with 10 representing the most favorable hiring speed.

So, where and what are the jobs that can get you hired fastest in 2025? Let’s take a look.

Fastest States to Get Hired in 2025

If you’re willing to move around, there are places you can go to get hired significantly faster. States with higher-than-average economic growth, lower competition, and booming industries fared best in our Fast Hire Index.

If you need to find work fast, you might consider moving west or going for smaller towns. Hawaii, the furthest west of all the states, actually ranked top in our geographical Fast Hire Index, owing to its low unemployment rate and massive job growth. Getting hired in Hawaii is over seven times faster than getting hired in our lowest-ranked state (District of Columbia).

However, within the contiguous United States, the non-coastal western states of South Dakota, Texas, and Montana fare best in our rankings, along with other rural states including Vermont, Indiana, Nebraska, and Wyoming. While low unemployment makes South Dakota and Montana most attractive to jobseekers, Texas is an appealing option thanks to its extremely high growth rate. 

Our state-by-state analysis shows there are some major differences in the prospects of being hired quickly, depending on where you go. If getting work quickly is your top priority, it really is worth considering going where the greatest opportunity, or the least competition, lies.

Fastest Industries to Land a Job in 2025

When it comes to landing a job fast in the US in 2025, transportation and utilities lead the way, along with construction. These sectors report low openings-to-hires ratios. This means roles are being filled quickly. They also have high projected growth rates, which suggests these industries could be more future-proof for workers than other sectors. While the relatively high unemployment rate provides some counterbalance, these general labor and skilled trades sectors still represent the greatest opportunity when it comes to finding a job fast.

Also sitting within the top five, healthcare, finance and insurance, and professional and business services all provide reasonable opportunities for fast hiring, owing to their relatively low unemployment rates. However, each of these industry sectors faces greater competition and a lower projected growth rate over the coming decade, making the manual-focused roles at the top of the rankings a better bet overall.

Blue-Collar Jobs Are Leading the Hiring Race in 2025

While finance and insurance, and professional and business services tend to include white-collar, professional, and executive roles, the greatest opportunity for fast hiring lies in traditional blue-collar sectors. The healthcare sector includes a mix of manual and clerical roles, but transportation and utilities, and construction are dominated by general labor and skilled trades.

The relative speed of entry into these industries reinforces a growing trend towards blue-collar trades by Gen Z and new entrants into the job market. In April 2025, CNBC reported the growing trend towards young people skipping college in favor of entering the job market via skilled trades. The speed of hiring in these blue-collar trades could easily add to the appeal of a career in skilled trades, over the longer, more drawn-out, and expensive route of a college degree.

Married to this growing desire to pursue skilled trades is a growing suspicion that AI and automation threaten many graduate and service sector jobs (Business Insider, May 2025). The lack of threat to jobs in skilled trades sectors means less uncertainty about future job opportunities. This is supported by our Fast Hire Index, where high job growth is expected in the two leading blue-collar industry sectors.

These economic, social, and technological pressures all combine to create a major labor market shift away from white-collar careers and towards skilled, manual, hands-on trades. The fact that these trades also tend to hire faster than many other professional sectors is more than a bonus when you’re looking for a job. This is true, whether you’re looking for a permanent career pathway or a quick route to boosting your workplace experience or financial security.

Fastest Hiring Roles in 2025

So, which specific jobs can you expect to find the fastest, within the best-performing sectors in our index? We reviewed each of the top five fastest-hiring industries and identified the top five jobs in each sector. These jobs are in high demand, and they are also more easily accessible than other roles and often come with competitive salaries.

To highlight the most in-demand roles across today’s strongest industries, we combined the data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics with active job listings on LinkedIn and Indeed (as of June 2025), and focused on three key indicators:

• Current job openings
• Projected job growth over the next five years
• Median salary

By analyzing these, we arrived at a list of roles that are in high demand, offer high financial potential, and are long-term opportunities, so you can target positions and careers that are here to stay. 

Top Jobs in the Fastest-Hiring Industries

Let’s take a look at the top jobs in each of the five fastest-hiring industry sectors:

Transportation and utilities

The top industry for hiring speed includes roles in logistics, delivery and essential services. Providing a viable fast route to employment, whether you’re seeking a stop-gap role, geographic flexibility, or a stable, longer-term career that can see you working, and earning quickly, this industry sector provides plenty of options. Truck driver jobs, warehouse work, and forklift operator roles offer rapid access to work, often without formal qualifications. Truck driver projected openings topped 250,000, with a median salary of more than $50,000, making it one of the most attractive and viable fast-hire roles in any industry sector.

Construction

The second-ranked industry sector for hiring speed combines a mix of professional/management roles and accessible manual positions for its highest-ranking jobs. For those with established industry experience and qualifications, roles such as construction manager, project manager and civil engineer provide attractive opportunities with competitive salaries. Electrician roles also offer specialist skilled workers with strong opportunities, even if you don’t have a degree. Meanwhile, laborer positions also sit within the top five roles, proving you can find great opportunities in construction without formal qualifications.

Healthcare and social assistance

The growth of the healthcare sector owes much to the aging population, with the top jobs in the sector emphasizing care work and nursing. Personal care aide and home health aide rank as the top two jobs, not just within the sector, but overall in our analysis. With no formal educational requirements, these jobs score extremely high Opportunity Index scores compared to most other jobs. Registered nurse ranks third in the sector, with a similarly high Opportunity Index score, but with its degree qualification requirement resulting in a much higher average salary.

Finance and insurance

More in the white-collar sphere than in some other industry sectors on our list, each of the top five jobs in the finance sector requires a degree-level qualification. However, the additional educational requirements are reflected in generally higher salaries. Financial advisor, accountant, and financial analyst all fall within our top 20 jobs overall.

Professional and business services

Another industry that predominantly offers white-collar, graduate-level jobs, the top five roles in the professional and business services sector all offer salaries around the $100,000 mark or more. These include data analyst, which ranks third overall in our list of top fast-hire jobs, with a high predicted growth rate, making it one of the most in-demand and popular roles in 2025.

Final Takeaways for Getting Hired Fast

Our first-ever Fast Hire Index shows that, no matter your circumstances, background, or qualifications, there are routes to finding a job at speed. Whether you’re looking to make the next step in your career or you need greater financial security, the Fast Hire Index can help guide your job search to make confident, informed decisions about your next steps.

Speed of hiring can help you minimize time away from work and offer you a faster route to financial security and independence. Adjusting your job search based on where and what roles are hiring quickly can also help you switch to a growing industry or a thriving region. This method can reduce your time-to-employment and lead you to a new career path, enhance your professional growth, and create better opportunities for the future.