Recruiting new workers is difficult, but keeping them is getting harder, too

Employers lucky enough to land a perfect job candidate in today’s market are going to have their work cut out if they want to keep them. Today’s workforce is “always on” at least when it comes to new job opportunities.

According to research from Jobvite, employers face a “continuous cycle of engagement” in recruiting (and keeping) new workers. Most workers say they’re happy with their current jobs, but that doesn’t stop a whopping 82 percent from saying they’re open to new job opportunities.

Related: The two-sided coin of social media in the workplace

Job-hopping is indeed on the rise. The number of individuals who reported changing jobs every one to five years has increased from just 34 percent in 2016 to 51 percent this year. Nearly 40 percent say they anticipate having four to six jobs during their working lives, and their reasons for leaving one job for another extend beyond the paycheck. While 19 percent of jobseekers overall say that money was the top reason that caused them to leave a job in the past year, among younger workers 13 percent said they’d leave because of a lack of growth opportunities.

Among women, 10 percent say that a lack of work-life balance would make them leave (compared to just 6 percent of men), while for men it’s definitely the dollars; 21 percent would leave a job over compensation, compared with 17 percent of women.

Compensation may lure workers to a new job, but it might not be enough to make them stay. Nearly 30 percent of jobseekers say they’ve left a job within their first 90 days; 43 percent said it was because the day-to-day role wasn’t what they’d expected. Other reasons for leaving among that 90-day group included a bad experience or incident (34 percent), the company’s culture (32 percent) or just changing their minds.

Company culture is definitely not to be overlooked, with 88 percent of respondents saying it’s at least relatively important, and they’re doing their research before they accept a job. Fifty nine percent head to a company’s website to research them and 34 percent admit to stalking the company on social media. Nearly a quarter of respondents have rejected a job opportunity due to reviews on sites such as Glassdoor.

Job seekers also have pretty well-defined expectations from prospective employers:

• 73 percent expect health care benefits
• 56 percent a 401(k) (married workers, by the way, are even more adamant about this, with 63 percent expecting it, compared with 49 percent of singles)
• 43 percent expect a 401(k) match
• 41 percent expect bonuses or stipends

Not all items on their benefits list are about money, with 36 percent wanting a casual dress code, but there’s a lot of flexibility and help involved, with 27 percent of women and 17 percent of men expecting parental leave; 19 percent overall looking for an education subsidy; and 16 percent wanting remote work.