It’s always important to pay a competitive salary to your workforce. Good pay and benefits ties employees to your company, builds connections with your workforce, and helps you retain them longer. But today, pay is even more important. Why? Because we are in the midst of a labor shortage that’s driving more employers to up the ante on hour wages, benefits, perks, and signing bonuses. If you don’t step up your game, we guarantee the competition will be right there to capture talent out from under you.
What Does the Talent Shortage Look Like?
There is an $8.5 trillion talent shortage. According to Korn Ferry, by 2030 there will be more than 85 million unfilled jobs. There simply aren’t enough people with the right skills to fill these seats. You’ve probably already heard about the healthcare and technology labor shortages. That’s not all. According to The Washington Post, the following industries have the biggest worker gap:
- Sawmills
- Textile mills
- Specialized long-haul truckers
- Movers
- Specialty finishing contractors
- Mental health providers
- Veterinarians
The article also says that employers are offering raises, bonuses, and perks at record levels, particularly in the seven sectors with the biggest labor shortages. In the last year:
- Sawmills have increased their pay by 10.4%
- Textile mills increased their pay by nearly 18%
- Long-haul truckers are making 9.4% more
- Moving companies raised their pay almost 14%
- Finishing contractors are making 17% more
- Nonmanagerial workers in mental healthcare are making 30% more
- Veterinarians and their staff are making 16% more
What does all this information tell the average business owner? If you want to find talent today, you’re going to have to pay.
Attract Talent—Increase Pay
The first thing to recognize about today’s job market is that the only way to find candidates is to proactively solicit them. Ask any recruiter and they’ll tell you that candidates are not applying for jobs with the frequency of past years and certainly not at pre-COVID levels. You must search harder for candidates, and when you find them, you must also pay them well in order to actually get them to come to work. What is going on?
The Washington Post quotes a University of San Diego economist as saying COVID-19, “broke many linkages between workers and their pre-pandemic employers, and it introduced a broad set of factors that make it less attractive for people to be in the jobs they previously held.” Employers, in turn, are upping the ante on compensation packages to attract talent. NPR reports Amazon and Disney World are offering $1,000 sign-on bonus for even their low-wage (non-managerial) employees. Job board Indeed reports that companies paying some kind of hiring incentive have more than doubled from this time last year. But hiring incentives aren’t all. PR says that wages for restaurant workers and others in the hospitality field took another jump by 2.3% in June alone.
It seems clear that almost every company needs a competitive advantage these days when trying to attract talent. Raising wages and offering an incentive are two effective ways to attract talent. But your ace in the hole is really working with a professional staffing firm like PrideStaff. We have a track record of ferreting out talent in markets like we’re experiencing today. Find out how we can fill your labor gap.
