Despite the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling overturning affirmative action, the decision appears to be having little to no impact on employers’ DEI recruiting priorities, according to results of NACE’s Job Outlook 2024 Spring Update survey. 

NACE Dashboard: Access And Analyze the Job Outlook 2024 Spring Update Survey Data

NACE members have access to the full set of data from the survey through its dashboard in MyNACE. This is an invaluable way for your team to gain insight into trends and issues, and enhance your ability to develop solutions and advocate for and market your department. For directions and tips on how to use a NACE research report dashboard, please see this YouTube video.

For fall 2024, less than 5% of respondents indicated the ruling would impact their DEI recruiting priorities for intern positions, while less than 4% reported that it would impact their DEI recruiting priorities for entry-level positions.

This lack of impact is even more pronounced over the next year as no respondents will decrease their DEI recruiting priorities. Instead, more than 30% of respondents plan to increase these efforts for both entry-level and intern positions.

Meanwhile, nearly 60% of respondents will maintain their DEI recruiting priorities for both types of positions, and the remainder, slightly more than 7%, reported that they do not have DEI recruiting priorities.

The Job Outlook 2024 Spring Update survey was conducted from February 6 – March 15, 2024. Of the 226 total respondents, 185 were NACE employer members, representing 21.0% of eligible member respondents. The Job Outlook 2024 Spring Update survey was also distributed to nonmember companies; this group provided an additional 41 responses. The survey updates hiring projections for the Class of 2024; those projections were collected from NACE employer members from August 2 – September 18, 2023, and were reported in Job Outlook 2024, which was published in November 2023. NACE members can access the Job Outlook 2024 Spring Update survey dashboard on NACEWeb.