Competition for Top Talent Heightens in the Service Industry as Unemployment Levels Improve
CHARLESTON, SC (PRWEB) February 26, 2015 -- As the U.S. economy continues to improve, economists predict the unemployment rate will steadily decline in 2015*, tightening the labor market and fueling concerns over competition for talent and minimum wage increases, which are echoed in PeopleMatter’s newly released “How Hourly Workforces Work” survey.
Of nearly 1,000 service-industry respondents, 89 percent said it’s not easy to find enough qualified candidates. In addition, 45 percent are concerned about minimum wage increases, in light of $8 federal minimum wage talks and Wal-Mart’s recent announcement to increase its minimum wage to at least $10 an hour next year.
Millennials are expected to make up 75 percent of the workforce by 2025**, and with them comes a demand for flexibility and connectivity. PeopleMatter’s survey confirms that 48 percent of employers believe a mobile hiring process would help them attract top talent. Another third rank mobile technology tools as one of the top technology investments they want to make in 2015.
“Convenience and connectivity are king to today’s tech-savvy workers. They expect to be able to apply for a job and receive their schedule for that job from their phones with a push of a button,” said Nate DaPore, President and CEO of PeopleMatter. “It’s up to us to realize and capitalize on the value of mobile, in order to help our customers increase applicant volume, quality, and employee retention, in 2015 and beyond.”
Effects of post-recession economic growth – like hiring increases and growing competition for talent – have service-industry employers focused more on long-term hiring strategies. As businesses continue to drive a better customer experience, an increasing focus will be on improving the applicant experience in order to attract and retain the great talent who can deliver it.
PeopleMatter’s mobile job application and six-minute, mobile-optimized hiring assessments make applying for a job faster and more convenient for job seekers. Increasing applicant volume and identifying candidates who are the best fit professionally and culturally also helps businesses reduce turnover. According to PeopleMatter's annual survey, the average year-over-year turnover rate is 39 percent year for hourly employees, while the year-over-year average for managers is 314 percent. In addition, respondents said it costs $4,969 on average to replace an hourly employee and $15,666 to replace a manager.
“As the unemployment rate has fallen over the last few years and job creation has picked up throughout the economy, People Report data has continued to reflect an increase in turnover at the hourly employee level,” said Victor Fernandez, Executive Director of Insights and Knowledge for TDn2K, a research firm specializing in human capital metrics, trends, and best people practices for the service industry. “There are more opportunities out there, and employees are increasingly leaving their current jobs to take advantage of those opportunities. We’ve found that more than 70 percent of all terminations are now people leaving their current job voluntarily, which is comparable with what we saw 10 years ago as the economy was in clear expansion mode.”
PeopleMatter’s research organization, The PeopleMatter Institute (PMI) has the full results of its “How Hourly Workforces Work” survey listed online. View Part 1: General Findings and access Part 2: Hiring Results and Part 3: Training Results from this page as well. Part 4: Scheduling Results and Part 5: Engaging Results will be available in April.
About PeopleMatter
PeopleMatter is a powerful and complete workforce management platform designed to fit the specific needs of service-industry brands. Our complete set of mobile, workforce solutions and business analytics tools connect processes, employees and customers in entirely new ways. Automating and optimizing people processes since 2009, PeopleMatter helps more than 45,000 service-industry locations thrive through better efficiency, engagement and customer satisfaction. PeopleMatter is headquartered in Charleston, SC and on the Web at http://www.peoplematter.com, @PeopleMatter, LinkedIn.com/company/peoplematter and Facebook.com/PeopleMatter.HR.
*Kiplinger’s Economic Outlook, February 2015
**The Deloitte Millennial Survey, January 2014
Ginny Drinker, PeopleMatter, http://peoplematter.com, +1 843-300-3460, [email protected]
Share this article