Dive Brief:
- The national employment outlook for the fourth quarter of 2019 remains positive at +20%, with the rate of hiring intentions exceeding 2018's Q4 rate by 1%, according to the ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey.
- The most optimistic hiring is projected to occur in leisure and hospitality (+27%), professional and business services (+24%), wholesale and retail trade (+23%) and transportation and utilities (+22%). Hiring intentions are expected to be the lowest in financial activities, including real estate, insurance and banking.
- "We're still in a time of unprecedented opportunity for U.S. workers as there are more open jobs than there are people actively seeking work," ManpowerGroup North America President Becky Frankiewicz said in a media release. "Businesses are staying focused on growth and we've seen more commit to investing in upskilling their people — that is, teaching them new skills for future jobs — in the last two months than we have in the last two years."
Dive Insight:
As Frankiewicz noted, the U.S. job market is tight. It's likely organizations will need to optimize their talent strategies in order to hire in this tight talent market.
The unemployment rate has held at 3.7% for three months, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly jobs report from August. This means organizations will have to work hard to attract the talent they said they hope to hire in the ManpowerGroup study. In addition to making the recruiting process personal and quick, employers can focus on a number of recruitment tools, including employer branding and compensation, to get job seekers' attention.
But recruitment isn't the only employer talent strategy in play — organizations place a premium on retention these days, too. As employers move to keep their workers, they invest in training opportunities to hire internally. Research from CGS found that among the more than 600 workers in the retail, hospitality, banking and telecom industries, many said they lacked the technical skills they need, and 27% said they were left on their own to get the training they wanted. With competition for talent tight in an employee-driven market — even for recent grads — employers may need to invest in training and development to both attract candidates and retain them as hires.