Companies in USA cannot find good employees: finance.yahoo.com despite the high unemployment levels.
I had a novel idea. Offer twice as much money. If that doesn't work, try 10 times as much. There will definitely be people with the required skills. <It isn't the just big manufacturers, oil companies and railroad operators that are struggling to hire skilled workers.
The "Help Wanted" sign is also a regular fixture at small firms such as Group One Safety & Security in Stuart, Fla., despite the high national unemployment rate, which was 8.2% in June.
About 31% of 811 small-business owners and chief executives said they had unfilled job openings in July because they couldn't identify applicants with the right skills or experience, according to a survey by The Wall Street Journal and Vistage International, a peer advisory organization for senior-level executives.
About 41% of the 154 manufacturing firms that answered the survey said they couldn't find applicants with the relevant experience or skills, compared with 30% of the 283 services businesses and 29% of the 56 retail businesses.
"We could grow a lot faster if we could find the right people," says Kevin Madden, president of Group One, which installs alarms and video surveillance in homes and commercial properties. He says he frequently declines new work because he doesn't want to jeopardize his company's customer service due to lack of sufficient support staff.
The 16-employee company currently has two unfilled job openings—for fire-alarm and burglar-alarm technicians. The jobs have been open for nearly 18 months.
The skills gap is a big topic among economists because of its policy implications. If companies aren't hiring due to an inability to find skilled workers, then part of the remedy for high unemployment might be training to help workers develop the required skills, rather than, say, lower taxes or lower interest rates.
For small businesses, in particular, the effects of the skills gap can be profound: The addition of just one or two employees to a small firm can be a significant growth move. Yet the amount of training small firms can afford to provide is often limited.
Most small firms "don't have the luxury of a training budget," says Kevin Sheridan, a senior vice president at Avatar HR Solutions Inc., a human-capital management consulting firm in Chicago.
Employers can be picky, especially at small businesses, where "the employer will say, 'It's saving me money not to fill it, and I'm in no rush here, really, so I may as well wait for someone who is perfect,' " says Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania's business school.
"Any new hire is a major new investment and a major new risk for a small business," says Michael A. Marasco, director of the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Northwestern University in Chicago. "Your tendency is to be conservative and try to make do with the employees you currently have."
According to the survey, 36% of small businesses said they offer training to help prospective employees develop the required skills for their unfilled jobs. About 24% of respondents said they tried raising salary offers to attract applicants for hard-to-fill positions.
At Ad-Ex International Inc., a 125-employee company that creates exhibits for corporate trade shows, there are now about half a dozen positions open, for sales personnel and tradesmen. Most have been available for months, including one that has been open for more than a year.
"Based on present economic conditions, we have to be cautious. It's expensive to train someone," says co-owner Mike Pierdiluca. He says he can get hundreds of applications for a job opening but many of the younger applicants lack the carpentry, painting and metalworking talents needed to perform the work.
In some cases, like an open administrative assistant position, many applicants are overqualified. He is wary of those candidates, he says, because he believes they "won't like the job—at least for very long."
Matt Noon, owner of Noon Turf Care, a lawn-maintenance business in Hudson, Mass., said he regularly has openings for telemarketing professionals because the work they are required to do—calling hundreds of prospective customers a day—isn't sexy. Five months ago, he raised the job's base salary to $45,000 from $25,000 and has since made four hires.
"It's increased the quality of applicants," he says, adding that he is hoping to hire at least five more sales professionals by the end of this year...... >
Damn, Noon Turf Care has figured out my secret idea for finding the right employees.
Mqurice |
