By Will Novosedlik

Depending on which sector you’re in, today’s job market is full of contradictions. In some sectors, there are lots of jobs and not enough people to fill them. In others, it’s the opposite: too much headcount and not enough work to justify it. This imbalance is the world companies are in right now, and although it’s become a cliché to blame it on the pandemic, we can definitely blame it on the pandemic.

To unpack the cliché and speculate on how employers are responding to these conditions, we sought out the expertise of Amanda Hahn, the recently hired CMO of HR consulting group HireVue, to get to the bottom of the current state of the job market.

The great reshuffle
“Last year everyone was talking about the ‘Great Resignation,’” says Hahn. “But at the professional level, that turned out to be more of a ‘Great Reshuffle’. People weren’t quitting the workforce, they were just moving from one place to another in response to better offers. So we’re starting to see less of that behaviour, and we expect it to stabilize over the next year. At the hourly level, however, things are still active. There is still a lot of gaps in that workforce.”

There’s also still room for growth in graduate hiring. Normally when professional hiring slows down, so too does entry-level hiring. But that’s not happening. As Hahn explains, “Pre-Covid, employers really pulled back on hiring recent graduates. But 18 or 24 months later, they were sorry that they did that because they found that they were behind in bringing new talent into their organizations. We’re certainly seeing pockets of slow growth in hiring that’ll continue over the next year. There are still lots of unfilled positions out there at the top levels.”

Automation growth
So how should employers respond to these gaps? Automation plays a role at all levels. According to Forbes Advisor, at the upper levels, companies will need to become more proactive. HR will need to locate talent before the demand for it becomes critical. To accomplish this, companies like HireVue offer AI-driven platforms to automate large parts of that recruiting process.

At lower levels, automation is filling the gap by performing tasks that would have otherwise been done by humans. Says Hahn, “In industries like warehousing and manufacturing, robotics and automation have gotten good at augmenting the workforce. For example, Amazon’s warehouses would not function today without robotics and automation. I think we’ll see shop floor automation grow to assist the labor force, which will have the effect of covering the gap. Automation will also be vital in responding to our declining population growth.”

Keeping stable
One of the other trends underway is the growing interest on behalf of employees for stability. During covid, employees were more confident about leaving one position for another, but in a world of growing uncertainty, stability is becoming more important to them, especially at the entry level. “Students are looking to join an organization where they stay long enough to learn, grow and feel secure in their role,” says Hahn.

Hire intentionally
For employers, one of the key strategies right out of the gate is to make sure that you’re hiring the right fit. “Things like pre-hire tests and assessments are a good way to make sure that you’ve got people who will stay inside your organization,” says Hahn. “And once they get in there, make sure that they’ve got good job growth and development opportunities.” Forbes Advisor cites a survey which found that 76% of employees report a desire for growth opportunities. Another recent survey reported 40% of employees who receive inadequate training will leave a company within a year of hire.

Forbes Advisor adds that companies will need to be proactive about developing and increasing talent retention. Meaningful raises and employee recognition programs will be attractive to candidates. In addition to yearly scheduled raises, cost-of-living raises and other inflation-related adjustments, bonuses in response to exceptional work will help promote continued motivation and top performance.

DE&I efforts are crucial
Diversity and inclusion have also become an increasingly important factor in today’s job market. According to Deloitte, 47% of candidates actively pursue companies that value diversity and inclusion, and 83% of millennials are more engaged in an inclusive environment. Research has long shown companies’ bottom lines benefit from the inclusion of diverse workforces.

Coming out of retirement
The pandemic has had a palpable effect at the senior end of the workforce. Reports from global management firm McKinsey have pointed to significant workforce loss in older generations due to Covid. Until recently, many older workers did not return to their jobs – but that’s shifting. Perhaps in response to pandemic income loss, HireVue is starting to see people come out of retirement to work while they still can, but not necessarily at the jobs they had pre-pandemic.

Industry specifics
As for specific industry impacts, they are predictably uneven. In tech, the headlines are all about massive layoffs. When ecommerce exploded during pandemic lockdowns, tech companies over-hired. Now they have too much talent. Not so in the travel, tourism, hospitality and retail industries. Due to pandemic restrictions, these industries typically over-fired, but now demand is back in those sectors, and they have been caught without enough talent.

Healthcare is another big problem area, where understaffing has become a crisis all over the world. This is prompting healthcare institutions to explore the potential for introducing automation into patient care. For example, nurses spend a lot of their time running back and forth to the pharmacy and making sure that they’ve got the right amount of medication for the right patient. Hospitals in the U.S. are exploring how robotics could relieve nurses of such tasks, allowing them to focus on more high-value care.

In many of the trends noted above, it’s obvious that we will continue to respond to the impacts of the pandemic for at least the next 12 months. That, along with economic uncertainty, will determine which jobs go, which jobs stay, and how quickly companies can pivot to meet the challenge of an unstable world.