Job Market Resilient Despite Tech Layoffs
The Irish job market has remained “resilient” despite hundreds of layoffs in the multinational tech sector, according to Morgan McKinley’s quarterly employment monitor.
The number of professional job vacancies in Q1 2023 was down slightly from the previous quarter (-0.86%) and stable year-on-year (-0.15%), but the number of jobs on offer has almost doubled since December in line with seasonal trends.
There was an increase of 13% in the number of professionals actively seeking new jobs during the quarter, and the study also recorded a 38% jump in professionals actively seeking new opportunities compared to Q1 2022.
The number of professional job seekers reached the highest monthly level for the past 18 months in March, with a 16% sequential increase from February 2023, and a 40% increase from March 2022.
“The Irish job market has remained resilient despite recent layoffs in the technology sector,” said Trayc Keevans, global FDI director.
“Although the number of professional job vacancies has remained relatively stable, we have seen an increase in demand for certain skills, particularly in engineering, life sciences and construction sectors.
“The number of professionals actively seeking new job opportunities has increased significantly.”
Morgan McKinley attributed the high number of professionals seeking new employment in March to a delay in those who received redundancy payments last year returning to the job market. Some took time out before hitting the job market, while others sought to upskill in pursuit of better career opportunities.
Salaries have remained stable from the previous quarter, and they remain competitive, although employers are less flexible than before to go above the market rate.
Employers are now putting more of a focus on retaining good talent, rather than attracting new candidates, according to the report. The biggest area of hiring has been in cyber security.
“Process Engineering is currently the most hired-for position in 2023, due to an increase in manufacturing activity, with a significant increase also in project management requirements for the engineering and life sciences sector.”
The largest growth in job opportunities in Q1 was in construction, and especially modular construction. The number of new positions in supply chain and procurement has risen 40% from Q4. Hiring at professional services, and specifically for accountancy and finance talent, has cooled though, perhaps as a result of the layoffs in tech.
The financial services sector has seen a decline in vacancies as global financial institutions are more exposed to international economic downturns and the uncertainty created by the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse.
Source: Business Plus
Brands ramp up recruitment plans but ‘roadblocks’ remain
Brands are showing increasingly robust recruitment plans, building on renewed confidence revealed in the final quarter of 2022.
According to IPA Bellwether data, a net balance of 16.7% of companies expect to increase employment levels over the next three months. The figures represent the first quarter of 2023 and show an increase from a net balance of 13.6% in the previous quarter.
Nearly a third (32.2%) of companies predict a growing workforce in the near future, compared to 15.7% that expect a cut in staff numbers. The figures represent the most positive outlook for employment growth in the last year.
Following staff shortages and recruitment challenges in light of the Covid-19 outbreak, companies have maintained a “resilient” attitude to recruitment – despite a tight labour market and inflationary pressure on pay – says the IPA.
The renewed confidence shown by the latest figures suggests pressures may be easing, though respondents to the IPA Bellwether report cite skills shortages and wage demands as possible “roadblocks” to hiring.
The trend is reflected in wider figures. Data from the Office for National Statistics shows around 220,000 more people were seeking work in the UK in the three months to the end of February than in the three months before. The figures appear to represent more people returning to the jobs market, possibly driven by cost of living challenges and by strong demand from employers.
While confidence to recruit is increasing, it is still at an historically low level. A year ago, in the first quarter of 2022, a net balance of 31.6% of companies expected to increase employee numbers, while the number expecting payrolls to fall was just 7.1%.
“The latest results signal the best outlook for employment growth since Q2 2022,” says the IPA Bellwether report.
Source: Marketing Week
NJ jobs shrinking? Employers still hiring? Making sense out of economic crystal ball
New Jersey lost 2,600 jobs in March and its unemployment rate remained steady at 3.5%, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development said Thursday, in a sign that the Garden State’s torrid job growth could be slowing down.
Even as some employers put on the brakes, however, others continue to expand in the state, showing that the picture of a post-pandemic economy remains mixed.
“We’re super bullish,” said Jeff Van Wie, general manager of Slalom, a Seattle-based consulting company that opened an office in New Brunswick on Wednesday with 200 employees. “The amount of opportunity we see with the clients that are here, we feel — for us — the business is going to keep growing.”
The monthly jobs report is from a survey of New Jersey employers that measures the number of jobs and a survey of households that measures the unemployment rate. It is a preliminary look that will be revised next month and again next year.
The March report was a snapshot from a month that saw two regional banks fail and the Federal Reserve Board raise interest rates for the ninth time in a year. The Fed is trying to slow down the economy and rein in inflation.
Economists have said it will be difficult for the Fed to avoid putting the economy into a brief recession.
The New Jersey job market seems to be slowing. Last year, it added nearly 130,000 jobs. For the first three months of this year, it added 13,700 jobs, according to the state, putting it on pace for an annual gain of 54,800 jobs.
In March, the leisure and hospitality industry continued its comeback from the pandemic by adding 2,100 jobs. Trade, transportation and utilities, and the information sector added 400 jobs each.
Professional and business services, which includes technology jobs, lost 3,500 jobs last month.
Source: App
Labour market overview, UK: April 2023
The UK employment rate was estimated at 75.8% in December 2022 to February 2023, 0.2 percentage points higher than September to November 2022. The increase in employment over the latest three-month period was driven by part-time employees and self-employed workers.
The timeliest estimate of payrolled employees for March 2023 shows another monthly increase, up 31,000 on the revised February 2023 figures, to 30.0 million.
The unemployment rate for December 2022 to February 2023 increased by 0.1 percentage points on the quarter to 3.8%. The increase in unemployment was driven by people unemployed for up to six months.
The economic inactivity rate decreased by 0.4 percentage points on the quarter, to 21.1% in December 2022 to February 2023. The decrease in economic inactivity during the latest three-month period was largely driven by people aged 16 to 24 years. Looking at economic inactivity by reason, the quarterly decrease was largely driven by people inactive because they are students.
In January to March 2023, the estimated number of vacancies fell by 47,000 on the quarter to 1,105,000. Vacancies fell on the quarter for the ninth consecutive period and reflect uncertainty across industries, as survey respondents continue to cite economic pressures as a factor in holding back on recruitment.
Growth in average total pay (including bonuses) was 5.9% and growth in regular pay (excluding bonuses) was 6.6% among employees in December 2022 to February 2023.
Average regular pay growth for the private sector was 6.9% in December 2022 to February 2023 and 5.3% for the public sector. The difference between the private and public sector growth rates has narrowed in recent months. In real terms (adjusted for inflation), growth in total and regular pay fell on the year in December 2022 to February 2023, by 3.0% for total pay and by 2.3% for regular pay. A larger fall on the year for real total pay was last seen in February to April 2009, when it fell by 4.5%, but it still remains among the largest falls in growth since comparable records began in 2001.
There were 348,000 working days lost because of labour disputes in February 2023, up from 210,000 in January 2023. Over three-fifths of the strikes in February were in the education sector.
Source: Office for National Statistics
Employers still face significant hiring barriers despite cooling labor market—here’s the No. 1 challenge
The labor market is finally cooling down, but employers say they still face the same hiring woes they encountered during the height of the pandemic: finding qualified talent promptly.
On Tuesday, the job site Indeed released new survey data sharing the top five barriers leaders say they are experiencing in hiring. They include:
– Time it takes to hire (43%)
– Poor quality of candidates (41%)
– Competition from other companies (38%)
– Not enough applicants (31%)
– Lack of people resources to manage the hiring process (26%)
Raj Mukherjee, Indeed’s EVP and GM for employers, says the shrinking number of HR professionals has quickly become one of the most acute barriers to hiring today.
“As the economic situation gets tightened, the HR and the TA departments get impacted through layoffs,” he says. “You have fewer people to hire for or manage your HR processes, so that is becoming more and more challenging as time passes.”
But employers still need talent in key roles like IT and sales, which align with their growth initiatives. In such areas, Mukherjee says time to hire remains the number one challenge.
“At the end of the day, the really important part is how do you accelerate the time to hire because the longer it takes for someone to hire, that’s a real disadvantage to the business. You lose money,” he says.
For today’s most in-demand jobs, employers report that it can take up to 11 weeks to fill an open position, up from about seven weeks in 2021, according to a survey conducted by employment agency Robert Half.
“The labor market is constantly evolving as we speak. It’s still highly competitive in many segments, even though there have been layoffs over the last six months or so,” says Mukherjee.
Source: Yahoo! Finance
Employers rely on internships as a recruiting tool in tight labor market
Employers expect to increase their summer intern numbers by 9.1% from last year according to a recent survey released by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. One reason for the increase is to lock in talent in a tight job market.
Nineteen-year-old Lexi Harrell is studying human capital and labor relations as a junior at Michigan State.
This summer, she’ll have her first-ever internship. It’s in human resources at the insurer Allstate and her goal is to learn about both HR and insurance.
“I just want to be someone that people can ask questions to instead of being the person that’s always asking questions,” said Harrell.
Employers view internships as an opportunity to ask questions of potential workers. Many say it’s an integral part of their recruiting strategy.
Mary Gatta with the National Association of Colleges and Employers says that a lot of internships result in job offers and of those interns who accept, “the retention rates for employees who served as interns are higher at the one year and the five year mark than those who did not.”
Gatta says internships give workers a chance to get a sense of a company’s culture. And that comes through even in a hybrid setting, where workers are in the office sometimes and sometimes remote — a reflection of the way lots of office jobs currently are.
Source: Marketplace
Young Canadians are earning more today – but barriers in labour market remain
Young, educated workers today are earning more than in previous generations, according to a new report from Desjardins.
But it’s not all rosy for young Canadians, with women in particular facing declining mental health and ongoing barriers in the labour market.
The new report from Desjardins is the first in a series looking at how young Canadians are faring in today’s economy.
“The narrative around how young people are faring tends to have a negative tone,” said Randall Bartlett, senior director of Canadian economics for Desjardins and co-author of the report.
“What we found in the data was a lot more room for optimism.”
The report builds on recent census data that showed the Canadian population is highly educated, with a larger proportion of people holding a post-secondary degree than any other G7 country.
Desjardins found young Canadians are more educated today than in the past, with more of them holding college certifications and bachelor’s degrees than many of the countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
That has implications for earnings, given that those who complete a post-secondary education tend to earn more money throughout their lifetime.
However, the report found that there are very real challenges in the labour market for young people as they move from school to the workplace.
Young women, for example, were facing declining mental health even before the pandemic hit, while young people in general saw their mental health decline significantly during the pandemic.
Women also continue to disproportionately carry the burden of caring for a child or family member.
“If you look at adults ages 25 to 44, women report caring for children as the primary reason for working part-time, while it barely registers for men the same age,” the report said.
Jean said the federal government’s pursuit of a national childcare program, which aims to deliver childcare that costs on average $10 a day, is a good start.
“(But) it needs to be made widely and easily accessible, without having to go through the long waiting time. So the execution of it will be crucial going forward,” he said.
Addressing mental health would also be a “very worthwhile investment,” he said, noting that poor mental health can affect young people’s abilities to successfully transition into the workforce.
The other consideration for policymakers, Jean said, is how to make it easier for immigrants to get their foreign credentials recognized.
Amid labour shortages, various governments across Canada are moving to ease credential recognition, particularly for health care workers.
Source: Global News
Italy focuses on female labour, birthrates amid labour shortages
Upping birth rates and bringing more women into the labour force are the solutions the government is proposing to plug the current labour shortage of about one million, Labour Minister Marina Elvira Calderone and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently said.
“Today we probably have a million jobs that we are unable to fill, while we have so many people who are out of the work circuit and therefore out of active engagement in the world of work”, said Calderone at the Confcommercio Forum.
The employment rate in Italy was about 60%, while unemployment and inactivity rates were stable at 8% and 33.8%, data released by Istat in February reads.
At the same time, there is a shortage of college graduates of about 20%, while the shortage of high school graduates amounted to 40%, data from Unioncamere, compiled by the Study Foundation of Labour Consultants.
Pharmacists, biologists, life science specialists and physicians are increasingly difficult to find, the research adds.
Meloni lamented the little investment previous governments made regarding birth rates.
“In Italy, there are more and more people to maintain and fewer and fewer people to work”, she said, noting that this causes the “problem of holding the economic and social system together”.
To solve the problem, Meloni proposed to bring “women’s work” up to the European average and focus on demographics with “the incentive by families to bring children into the world.”
“I think that before we get to the immigration issue, we have to work, for example, on the possibility of involving many more women in the labour market. Then there is the issue of incentivising the birth rate. These are the priorities to work on”, she explained.
Source: Euractive
