Here at Talent Acquisition Innovation, we’ve been studying what economists are forecasting for the coming year. Here are the most significant trends to know as you plan your career or business moves this year and for the long road ahead.
1. Job seekers will retain the upper hand in 2019. The past year has been a “huge year for hiring,” said Glassdoor Chief Economist Andrew Chamberlin in a Dec. 18 webinar (now available on demand). The economy is strong and unemployment is at historic lows. “We haven’t seen a job market like this in more than 50 years,” Chamberlin said.
That’s great news for job seekers, but bad news for employers. “The talent war is reaching new levels,” said Vistage Chief Research Officer Joe Galvin at a recent gathering of entrepreneurs in North Carolina. A recent nationwide survey has revealed that 87 percent of small business leaders feel that “talent” is the top challenge affecting their business, Galvin added. Businesses are actually delaying delivery times or even turning away customers because they can’t find the talent they need to grow their business during this economic boom. Candidates for technical and knowledge worker jobs are especially scarce and will continue to be hard to find in 2019, Chamberlin predicts.
What this means: If you’re a job seeker (or even if you’re relatively content in your current position), the opportunities right now to boost your earnings and gain new experiences in another job are unprecedented–it’s your career’s “once in a lifetime” moment, so carpe diem. You’ll want to keep your eyes wide open, and our TAI recruiters can help you do that.
2. The talent crunch will continue through at least the next decade. The economic boom we’ve been experiencing will slow down a bit in 2019 as the impact of Trump’s tax cuts begins to fade and as new tariffs squeeze economic sectors beyond manufacturing, according to Connor Lokar of ITR Economics, also a Vistage presenter. This slowdown won’t be a recession, he stresses–more like a “speed bump or a pause.” The talent crunch will remain tight even during 2019’s forecasted slowdown because Baby Boomers are retiring in droves and there’s not enough younger workers to replace them. Expect the US work force to grow at less than 1/2 percent per year over the next few years.
The “tidal wave of aging workers could mean labor shortages for decades,” said Chamberlin. Yes, articles describing the sub-group of Baby Boomers who haven’t saved adequately for retirement pepper the popular press, but the truth is that, as a whole, this generation of retirees are the wealthiest in our history. Baby Boomers like to spend–$400 billion a year on consumer goods and $120 billion a year on leisure travel, for example. Don’t expect the “me generation” to save its money to pass on to heirs when they die, experts predict. Many folks in the Silent Generation and in the first wave of Boomers will live long lives and will continue to spend, particularly in the health care and leisure sectors, Chamberlin predicts. That spend will continue to create demand for workers.
What This Means: If you are an employer looking to grow your business, you need a strategic plan for finding and retaining talent not just for 2019, but in the years to come. Don’t know what that looks like? Our talented TAI team can help.
3. Robots won’t fill all of those job openings. Don’t assume that our nascent AI revolution means you won’t need to hire employees, cautions Chamberlin. “AI is an ally, not a replacement” for human workers. Here’s why: The AI industry is currently creating more jobs than it’s taking, Chamberlin added. Companies are using AI is “not to replace workers, but to give human workers a leg up,” he explained. Most employers are using AI “in small ways to accomplish small things.” Think meeting schedulers, chatbots for initial (and simple) customer service interactions, and other “off-the-shelf” solutions.
Chamberlin’s advice to employers is to harness AI to make each hire “count more.” Develop your work force so that they clearly understand how to optimize AI’s full potential at your company. Most companies aren’t doing this, he says, which means they’re not getting all the boost they can from the AI they’re currently using.
4. Gig economy growth is leveling off. “The lesson from 2018 is that the gig economy is way smaller than most people predicted,” Chamberlin notes. Only one percent of the US labor force works in the gig economy, according to a recent BLS report, and this sector may well have been overhyped in the popular press, some experts caution.
A key factor limiting gig economy growth is that it involves only jobs where minimal ramp-up is required. Much of that ground has been sown already, so Chamberlin doesn’t expect significant growth or development in this area.
5. Job candidates aren’t relocating to get the jobs they want. “Amazon’s HQ2 debacle” made that point loud and clear this past year, Chamberlin said. Amazon wanted to choose one location for their much-heralded second headquarters. Many cities courted the giant employer, but in the end Amazon chose to locate two HQ2’s in two predictable areas that boast a dense, well-educated work force. Amazon’s story accentuates “the importance of local talent for where you locate your business,” Chamberlin said. “Hardly anyone is willing to pick up and move for jobs.” That reality makes your strategic plan for hiring talent harder, though it might be a little easier to retain employees who have strong ties to your area.
6. Data is your biggest ally in this job market. Analytics and data-assisted matching of candidates with jobs are creating new paradigms for job seeking and hiring, Chamberlin said. Data mining gives skilled recruiters the ability to make “more curated” recommendations to job poster and find better matches on behalf of hiring managers.
7. Today’s economy demands that we rethink our understanding of “technical jobs.” 45 percent of Glassdoor job postings from “tech companies” are actually for non-technical jobs, Chamberlin said. Tech companies are looking more like traditional companies and traditional companies are looking more like tech companies, he noted. Dominos describes itself as a tech company that sells pizza, and even traditional makeup is making moves into the sphere. In the tech sector, the future of hiring is not technical, Chamberlin added. It’s sales, marketing, HR, and accounting. His advice for non-tech companies: hire based on skills rather than degrees. Tech companies should hire solid non-tech people and teach them the tech later, he added.
8. A-players crave “belongingness at work.” Well, everyone craves belongingness at work, Chamberlin said. But employers are most interested in the high-performing employees who deliver 400% more productivity.
The first step to creating “belongingness at work” is to harness data, human resources expertise, and an almost surgical precision to match people with jobs during the recruiting process and during internal moves within the same company. Smart hiring maximizes the chances that you’ll end up with an engaged employee who will enthusiastically fuel your company’s growth and development. An experienced recruiter can help you hire smart and position your company for success in 2019 and beyond.
