Hire Economics: The Workforce is Restless, But Has Nowhere to Go

Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) reported that 162 thousand new non-farm payroll jobs were created in July. To put this in perspective, the average since the beginning of the year was 192 thousand new jobs per month. This is a slight uptick from last year’s 182 thousand average of new jobs per month. As reported elsewhere, this is not enough job growth to reduce unemployment.

Another report, the DOL’s monthly JOLTs report of total open jobs in the U.S., provides a leading indicator of what to expect in the coming months. Unfortunately, it's likely to be more of the same. As shown in the first graph, the total number of open jobs has been pretty flat for the past six months, with June coming in at 3.9 million, an increase of only 27 thousand from May.

Rethinking the Supply vs. Demand for Talent

While the JOLTs report reflects the demand for talent, there is obviously not enough of the right supply of people to meet this demand, since these jobs never seem to get filled. Alternatively, it might be that matching people to an arbitrary list of skills and experiences is a flawed idea. A simple three-question job-satisfaction vs. job-hunting status survey we conducted over the past few days (over 11,000 people have responded so far) suggests this might be the case.

Can’t Get No Satisfaction

The first question in the survey tested conditional interest in changing jobs by asking respondents if they would be open to explore a new opportunity if it were better than the one they now held. Over 95% said yes. This is startling, since it means just about everyone wants to change jobs. This is shown in Graph II, with the blue circles representing the percentage of people not looking (37%), casually looking (43%) and actively looking (20%). In essence, almost two-thirds of the talent market is currently looking to change jobs, with just about all of the rest thinking about it. Job-satisfaction doesn’t seem to be much of a deterrent, either. As shown in Graph III, 90% of the most satisfied would still be open to take a call from a recruiter to discuss the idea of a better job.

While the survey is semi-scientific, along with the DOL data, some basic conclusions can be drawn. In particular:


1) Year-to-year job satisfaction is declining with just about everyone interested in doing something different. A similar survey conducted with LinkedIn two years ago indicated that over 30% of the workforce was highly satisfied. This has now dropped to 10%. As a minimum, this should be a wakeup call to company leaders. If the economy improves even slightly, it won’t take much to lure some of your best people away.

2) Job-seekers: don’t wait for things to happen, make them happen. There’s a whole section in The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired about how to ensure your next job is not a lateral transfer, but a real career move. Rather than automatically applying, it might be better to find someone on LinkedIn who can get you in through the back door. This post will show you what you need to do to increase your odds of getting an interview this way by at least 10X.

3) Recruiters: don’t sell the job, sell the next step. Just because someone says, “Yes, I’m interested in discussing a possible career move,” it doesn’t mean the person is interested in your open job. So don’t pitch your job. Have a semi-casual career discussion, instead. If the job seems like it could be a potential career move, describe why, and schedule a more in-depth follow-up discussion. It takes a person many hours spread over several weeks to figure out if a job opening represents a true career move. Don’t try to cram it into the first 10-minute call.

4) Hiring managers: stop trying to force-fit people into poorly defined and skills-infested job descriptions. Research after research report, including Google’s Project Oxygen, indicates that clarifying job expectations upfront is the number one driver of job satisfaction, performance and the primary criteria the best candidates use to determine if they’ll take an offer or not.

5) All: don’t negotiate salary during the first 10 minutes of the first call. It’s best to discuss compensation after the recruiter and job-seeker both fully appreciate the career potential of the opportunity. Too many people stop the conversation before it even gets started.

The short-term impact of few new jobs being created is a big jump in employee dissatisfaction, a reduction in performance, and an increase in involuntary turnover. While this is bad, much worse is the fact that a huge segment of our workforce is not growing as rapidly as it should be. This is of serious concern, and although the survey might not be as scientific as possible, the idea that the workforce is restless can not be disputed, nor should it be ignored.

___________________________________________

Lou Adler (@LouA) is the creator of Performance-based Hiring and the author of the Amazon Top 10 business best-seller, Hire With Your Head (Wiley, 2007). His new book, The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired, (Workbench, 2013) has recently been published. Feel free to join Lou's new LinkedIn group and explore his Wisdom About Work series on Faceback.

Photo credit: Africa Studio / Shutterstock.com

Judith Yoke Guat Lim

EasyStepsToPublicRelations

10y

As per your headline“The Workforce Is Restless,But Has Nowhere To Go.“It all boils down to Demand&Supply.This only happens when too many employees have the same skills with few employers needing those skills.Before the Computer Age,hardly anyone wanted to study computer engineering,programming or IT.But now because of the demand in the Computer Sciences,you see a great increase in employees learning these skills.If employees wish to be more employable these days,they have to re-educate themselves or learn new skills.I once worked with a retired 60 year-old secretary with good shorthand&typing skills.But she was proactive enough to take up a short computer course so that she could continue her work as a secretary in a PR firm.

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Reply
Jeremy Barnaby

SOC- Silicon Engineering Group

10y

Ambitious people don't want to move to the same job in a different company, face the same challenges, make the same (or a little more money), and potentially work for a bad boss. So, they don't, and stay restless. I see it every day. We need more organizations hiring for potential, and managers trained to screen for it. Great Article!

Nate Weymouth

Patent | Technology Specialist | Medical Affairs | Pharmacology, Oncology, Hepatology

10y

We have a recruiting problem in this country. There are too many middle men (i.e. HR recruiters and headhunters) that don't add value to the process. Often screening resumes is delegated to someone who doesn't have the expertise to understand the background of a candidate because the hiring manager is too busy. The recruiter is only armed with a checklist of keywords and stock questions. Doesn't make any sense to have the least qualified making hiring decisions. Managers have a responsibility to be actively involved in the recruitment process even if they have to screen a number of resumes. If not, you can't complain about not finding the right employees. Thus, limit the role of HR in recruiting, the use of external recruiters, and increase the role of the hiring manager in the process.

EDWARD NYALU

Technical Assistant at Daiho Offshore Engineering Services

10y

Hey, Don't risk yourself, think before you JUMP,,,,

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