U.S. companies digging deeper to find and keep workers

The tight job market is pushing companies to work a little harder to find and retain talented employees, even driving them to relax some of their requirements.

According to The Conference Board’s Global Labor Market Outlook report, it’s not just the U.S. having a tough time filling jobs; globally more-intense economic activity has brought strong hiring and “slow-to-negative growth in the labor supply. But in the U.S., there have been other problems: low labor force participation caused in part by the opioid epidemic and in part by an increasing number of people who aren’t in the labor force because of disability.

As a result, globally, companies are taking on more female and older workers as well as boosting automation. In the U.S., businesses are also lowering educational requirements for some groups of workers, as well as increasing telework.

The problem is so pronounced that the report predicts that by 2019, the labor market could be so tight in the U.S., U.K., Japan, and several countries in Central and Eastern Europe that it will break decades-old records. In the U.S., it’s probable that the unemployment rate will hit its lowest level since the 1960s, spurring acute labor shortages in a number of industries and locations.

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So how are these strategies playing out? According to the report, lower education standards are on the rise among employers. While during the financial crisis and in the two to three years following it, the report says, “the share of workers with a BA or some postsecondary education increased among new workers.” However, since 2012 and 2013, upskilling hasn’t increased with a tightening job market, instead heading the other way as more educated workers were already employed. That suggests that employers have had to lower requirements for education just to be able to fill certain jobs.

Teleworking, too, it reports, is on the rise. While in 2001 only 1.2 percent of full-time workers teleworked, by 2016 that had risen to 3.1 percent.

Then there’s increased hiring among women and mature workers, with alternative work arrangements broadening the pools of both groups of workers available for hire.

Incidentally, the report warns that companies that stall on providing higher wages could be in for a rough time in recruiting, retention and worker satisfaction—making a tough hiring market even tougher. But businesses are sinking money into automation to relieve labor crunches, as well as to keep labor costs down.

“While recruiting and retaining talent poses a growing challenge for employers, the picture looks brighter for those on the other side of the equation—the employees,” Gad Levanon, the primary author of the report and the chief economist for North America at The Conference Board, says in the report. Levanon adds, “As just one example, our latest Conference Board survey of U.S. workers found increased satisfaction with wages and growth opportunities. With more job opportunities available, employees can settle into jobs that suit them better.”