Digital hiring collapsed under the pandemic but quickly revived. From January 2017 to February 2020, the digital hiring rate—the proportion of LinkedIn members who list digital skills in their profile and indicate a change in employer that month—increased by an average of 9 percentage points year on year across the Asia and Pacific economies covered in this report, more quickly than the 5-percentage-point increase in the US. The pandemic then caused digital hiring to plunge by half in the first 6 months of 2020, but this was followed by quick recovery and acceleration late in 2020 and early in 2021.

Demand for digital skills grew most in industries hit hardest by the pandemic. The pandemic increased demand for talent able to help companies accelerate their digital transformation with improved digital infrastructure for consumers and for their own operation and management, especially in industries strongly affected by the crisis, including health care and education.

Workers with higher skills benefited more. Individuals with basic digital skills enjoyed less growth in demand than those with either intermediate or advanced disruptive skills.