Results from a recent CareerBuilder survey reveal that companies are looking to ramp-up hiring efforts to fill both temporary and full-time positions in 2018, but are there enough bodies to fill the empty seats?
CareerBuilder’s report shows that 44 percent of businesses are looking to hire full-time employees and 51 percent are planning on hiring temporary employees. However, nearly half of all hiring and HR managers surveyed (45 percent) stated that they’re unable to fill much-needed positions because qualified talent is scant. Additionally, more than half of the respondents said that jobs remain unfilled for 12 weeks or more.
To add insult to injury, 40 percent of employees surveyed said they plan on changing jobs in 2018.
According to Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder, “There is a perfect storm happening in the U.S. labor market. Low unemployment paired with lagging labor force participation and a growing skills gap is making it very difficult for businesses to find qualified candidates — and this is for all types of roles. If employers want to remain competitive, they are going to have to look to new talent pools and significantly increase their investment in training workers to build up the skills they require.”
To succeed in this dynamic job market, it might be time for HR leaders to re-evaluate stale hiring methods and consider implementing new hiring practices based on what’s trending.
Luckily, CareerBuilder did some of the leg work and used their survey to help predict hiring trends for 2018. They polled 888 hiring and HR managers in the U.S. (as well as 809 full-time employees), and discovered the following potential trends for 2018:
- Hiring for potential, not experience
- Acquiring potential early (new grads)
- Re-hiring former employees
- Boosting salaries
- Importing talent from other countries.
The results also revealed what type of jobs may require more attention from hiring professionals. Aside from customer service, sales, information technology and production, the top categories include:
- Skilled labor
- Data analysis
- Digital marketing
- Cybersecurity
- Automation
- AI and “machine learning.”
Though impossible to know for certain, employment and hiring trend predictions can help better serve businesses because it allows HR to keep a finger on the pulse of talent management and acquisition.
