6 Reasons Finding Employees is Hard

Introduction

This article will explore 6 reasons finding employees is hard, but first some background.

2020 was a significant disruption in the world of business. In a monumental way, it changed how businesses operated and employees interacted with their peers, their bosses, and the rest of the world.

There were supply chain issues, childcare issues, and many employees began working remotely.

Lately, unemployment is surprisingly low, but many jobs and businesses are struggling to find and retain workers. Even if they can find someone to work, their turnover rate is high, leaving them scrambling to find someone new to fill the position just filled and then just as suddenly vacated.

In this post, we will explain reasons finding employees is hard and why you might be having trouble with your recruiting efforts.

Anyone who wants to hire employees right now is aware that there is a labor shortage. According to Forbes Magazine, “Next to rising costs, the biggest complaint from American businesses is the shortage of workers.”

Main Reasons Why Finding Employees is Difficult

What are the main reasons finding employees is difficult right now? You will get various answers depending on who you ask, but here are some commonly agreed upon reasons why there is currently a labor shortage:

1. Wages vs Inflation

Wages are not keeping up with inflation. Salaries have been increasing in the US, but not quickly enough to keep up with the rising inflation. Many employees are seeking out higher paying jobs, leaving lower level paying jobs with a shortage of workers.

2. Higher Businesses Costs

Businesses are also battling with higher costs. Many businesses, especially small businesses, are struggling to compete with costs going up. Business owners may want to increase their employee wages, but the cost of goods has eaten up a lot of their extra profits.

3. The Great Resignation and the Great Reshuffle

In 2021, 47 million workers quit their job in what many have called “The Great Resignation.”

• • According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the trend currently may be better described as the Great Reshuffle, in which many of those workers quit their jobs to seek out other jobs leaving some fields of work lacking employees more than others.

4. Childcare Issues

Although most schools across the US are open now, childcare and school closings were a major factor in families choosing to have one parent stay home. In households that had two parents working, many of them switched to a one-working-parent home at least temporarily.

• • This may account for some shortages in some industries that have traditionally been female dominated. For example, women make up 51% of restaurant workers and 71% of servers, according to Fast Company.
    

5. Boomers Leaving Workforce Permanently

Baby boomers are retiring. There is also a lot of evidence that shows that the baby boomer generation is retiring, and in some cases earlier than anticipated. Pew Research released this report in 2020:

• • “Millions of Baby Boomers retire each year from the U.S. labor force. But in the past year, the number of retired Boomers increased more than in prior years…
  • In the third quarter of 2020, about 28.6 million Baby Boomers – those born between 1946 and 1964 – reported that they were out of the labor force due to retirement.
  • This is 3.2 million (or 13%) more Boomers than the 25.4 million who were retired in the same quarter of 2019.”

6. Remote and Hybrid Working Conditions

Remote work has changed the market. 2020 led to a lot of people switching from working at a central location to working remotely. A lot of workers prefer to work remotely, making it harder for jobs that require in-person participation to compete for employees.

Other Reasons

There may be other contending factors that have changed the job market over the past few years. Certainly, stimulus money, increased unemployment benefits, and forced shutdowns during the pandemic affected the job market in many ways.

These factors may have subsided in 2022, but quite likely played a part in workers seeking new and different positions as things opened up again.

Another reason there are fewer available workers is the increase of interest in starting small businesses or working in gig work rather than full-time paid positions. Nasdaq reports, “Some 83% of the people surveyed by Intuit who want to start a business said COVID-19 has accelerated their plans to start their own business.”

Piecing it Together

There may be many more reasons finding employees is difficult and businesses in most industries are failing to attract new talent.  But the above are among some of the biggest reasons. Some of them may be difficult to overcome for small to medium-sized businesses in certain markets or industries.  But there are still ways to find good hard-working employees even during these unusual times.

We will give you ideas to find good employees though there are many reasons finding employees is difficult in 2022.  Our next article, 6 Benefits Employees Want, will discuss the features that modern employees want in a job which make them more available to accept your job offer.

Flexicrew Gets the Reasons Finding Employees is Hard and Provides Support

We are quite familiar with reasons finding employees is hard right now.  Especially those who are efficient and hard-working. Many of them we have trained to do so to improve their job and career prospects.

If you need assistance finding individuals who possess excellent productivity qualities, contact one of our recruitment professionals Today.