77% of Companies Expect to Encounter a Talent Shortage

The third annual iHire’s 2021 State of Online Recruiting Report reveals 77% of companies expect to encounter a talent shortage. This is as the economy is on its way to being fully open post the COVID-19 pandemic. And according to the report, 86.2% of employers in the survey are currently hiring, as they face a shortage.

Small Business Owners Expect a Talent Shortage

Even though the unemployment rate in the U.S. currently stands at 5.9%, employers are experiencing a worker shortage. Close to three-fourths (73.9) of employers say there are, “too few qualified candidates.” They are citing this as one of their most significant online recruiting challenges. Moreover, 77% expect a shortage of applicants in the coming year for qualified applicants.

Although the past 18 months have been unusually challenging, iHire says 2021 is the third straight year where candidate quality is above any other hiring challenge. Recruiters (63.5%) are also struggling with a low volume of applicants, while 46,8% say they are grappling with unresponsive candidates.

Some of the other challenges include the cost of using a job board/talent community, high application abandonment rate, and not enough job ad exposure/limited reach. And according to Steve Flook, iHire’s President and CEO, these and other issues are taking place at the same time.

In the release, Flook goes on to say, “… We’re undergoing one of the greatest periods of disruption in how and where work gets done. With a triple-whammy of unemployment, remote work, and the rise in professionals contemplating career changes, recruiters and job seekers need guidance now more than ever.”

Some of the key takeaways from this year’s report are:

• There is more hiring, with 86.2% saying they are hiring. This is a 13.4% increase from last year.
• 66% say they increased their hiring within the past year.
• Only 20.6% say they have concerns with their hiring budgets in the next 12 months.
• 6% do most of their recruiting through job boards.
• Employers are leveraging referrals (70.6%), social media (57.0%), and their websites (50.2%) to source talent.

The Takeaways for Employers

In order to address the hiring challenges many employers are facing, iHire recommends businesses to diversify their recruiting portfolio; leverage their company’s website; separate job requirements into “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves”; communicate, communicate, communicate, and think “quality over quantity.”

For jobseekers iHire recommends for them to get networking; expand their skills; look beyond salary; respond to employers, and market themselves.

The iHire 2021 State of Online Recruiting Report is a comprehensive survey of a total of 6,370 U.S. job seekers (5,614) and employers (756). The survey was carried out in June and July of 2021 with job seekers and employers of various sizes across 57 industries.

Image: Depositphotos

This article, "77% of Companies Expect to Encounter a Talent Shortage" was first published on Small Business Trends