Daniel Zhao says that calling the employer demand and employment issues a labor shortage isn't quite right.
He should know.
One of the internet's top jobs sites has a senior economist and data scientist named Zhao. He talks to Insider about the Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly jobs report and the state of the jobs market. He led a workplace-trends report for Glassdoor that crunched data on millions of employee reviews and job searches, and laid out what to expect in the workplace and in hiring for 2022.
He learned that it will be difficult to find a job in 2022.
According to Insider, this isn't solely due to a lack of capable workers but rather the number of workers who are just choosing not to participate in the workforce for various reasons.
"Labor shortage is a tricky term because it implies that there aren't workers available, so I don't think the US is facing a labor shortage," he said. There are a lot of workers on the sidelines who would be willing to come back to work if the conditions were right.
He said that the conditions just aren't right.
The prime age of workers who have left the labor force is 25 to 54 years old. The labor force participation level for workers in that range was 1.1 million below the February 2020 level as of November.
There are more openings than unemployed workers. There were 67 unemployed workers for every 100 job openings in October.
There is a difference between a labor shortage and difficulty in hiring and retaining workers. They're not the same concepts. I think it will be difficult for employers to hire and retain workers moving forward.
People are out of work because of the Pandemic.
The coronaviruses have resulted in a number of changes in the labor force, from the "Great American Resignation" to the "Great Reshuffle" to the "Antiwork" philosophy.
In his new workplace trends report for Glassdoor, Zhao concluded that the ongoing Pandemic would cause another hard year for hiring, as it could keep many members of the workforce off the market in 2022, as well. He said that potential employees' reasons could be health concerns, waiting for a job that offers more benefits, or both.
"Demand for workers is higher than we would normally expect during an economic recovery." The supply of workers hasn't kept up because of the Pandemic, but the recovery has been faster than expected, and that has pushed up the demand for workers.
It will be important for companies to draw in talent who left the labor force rather than those who were pushed out.
It's going to be hard to find a job for a while.
David Kelly, chief global strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management, told Insider that there are a lot of issues keeping people from working.
Increased pay isn't enough to bring workers back.
Employers have tried to increase wages and offer signing bonuses, but not all of them have succeeded.
Wages alone might not be enough to attract workers back to work.
Workers with health conditions who leave their jobs due to the risk of contracting COVID-19 need safer working conditions, not just higher pay. Businesses should be creating solutions that are unique to them.
"If an employer knows that they have a lot of parents at their company who have to take time off in order to take care of children because of the Pandemic, then offering some targeted child-care benefits might help keep those employees in the workforce and retain them at your company,"
Kelly thinks that the government could help the shortage by increasing the pace at which people get green cards, because one of the things that's making this shortage worse is we're not getting enough green cards.
Outside of higher compensation and better conditions, employers can look for laborers who were pushed out of the workforce for nonpandemic reasons, such as a disability or formerly being incarcerated.
It's going to be difficult to get workers back into the labor force because it's not just a matter of convincing everyone that it's safe. The person said that. It's drawing in workers with higher wages.
