Originally published in Legaltech News, April 16, 2025
In recent years, the privacy job sector has seen major shifts in hiring, according to a report from TRU Staffing Partners published Tuesday.
The 2025 AI Governance and Data Privacy Jobs Report took into account data points from thousands of privacy job seekers and hiring managers tracked by TRU Staffing Partners. The report found that privacy job postings decreased from 44,260 in 2022 to 18,856 in 2024.
TRU Staffing Partners founder and CEO Jared Coseglia told Legaltech News this is due to organizations recalibrating in the years after the COVID-19 pandemic when many believed there was going to be a recession.
“In Q4 of 2022 Zuckerberg lays off 10,000 people at Meta, everybody thinks we're going into a recession … there's all these layoffs and then a recession doesn't happen in 2023 or 2024,” he said. “Everyone started preparing as if it would happen, running very lean and cutting budgets specifically around compliance related or legal related employment relative to the amount of hiring that they did in ‘21 and ‘22, so that's why you see such a steep fall off on data privacy jobs.”
The report also found only a small number of AI governance jobs in 2024. Coseglia noted that many organizations are trying to figure out what the job would entail, especially because some of AI governance work could be completed by privacy professionals.
“A lot of privacy people are being thrust AI governance upon them and it is a fractional piece of what they do, but not the totality of their job,” he said.
Organizations not knowing exactly what AI governance jobs should entail also plays a role in how AI salaries differentiate from privacy compensation. When comparing privacy and AI governance job salaries, the report found that there could be up to a 48% difference in pay, with privacy professionals earning more.
“With uncertainty comes risk trepidation from a salary perspective from employers, and we're seeing that,” Coseglia said.
Over the years, the number of full-time employment versus contractor privacy roles changed as well. A lot of organizations want to test out contractors, eventually offer them full-time roles and keep them for the long haul, Coseglia said.
“It's a lot easier for a lot of hiring managers to say, let me reallocate budget from outside counsel spend or consulting … or software enhancement and spend that money on a contractor that's going to help move the needle more meaningfully for the program with what we've already invested in, and then help me get the buy-in for a full-time resource,” he explained.
When it comes to the future of privacy jobs this year, Coseglia said organizations will and should continue to utilize contractors for the sake of flexibility in our current state of economic uncertainty.
“I would say every privacy program manager, whether they've got governance as well, should be thinking about using contractors as an ongoing way to augment their program,” he said. “There is now a sufficient supply of talent available that is diversified in terms of skillset and price point for companies of all sizes to go to market and get the top or the most reasonable price and skilled caliber individual that they need for whatever their need is.”