Hiring Pressures Continue to Mount Amid Rising Demands on a Shrinking Talent Supply

After researching major economic and demographic trends influencing the supply of talent around the world, it’s clear that traditional approaches to workforce management may no longer fill the gaps talent scarcity has left behind. So based on Allegis Group’s extensive experience and the research outlined in our new Global Workforce Trends Report, we hold that successful talent organizations will be those that apply a conscious approach to three critical areas:

• Expand the External Talent Supply: Shrewd organizations are adding flexibility to their job requirements, opening themselves and their recruiting strategies up to people with the right skills regardless of worker types.
• Optimize Internal Talent: Outside of determining where to recruit and what types of workers to pursue, successful companies are turning to internal talent as their best defense against worker shortages and shifting skills demands. This tactic is especially important as talent scarcity becomes more severe. Companies that take an employee-first approach and apply active training and skills development may be best positioned to satisfy workforce needs.
• Commit to Change – Looking Beyond Transactional Results: An effective talent partner goes beyond filling roles and finding workers, applying strategy, expertise, and technology to help clients navigate changing talent needs. The challenge of breaking out of a transactional mindset, where days are spent measuring cost-of-hire, time-to-fill, or contingent worker rates, is significant. It requires change, and change is not easy to achieve. Fortunately, many companies realize that efforts to build employer brands, improve data and analytics intelligence, and boost retention and development of current employees are essential for their ability succeed and grow.

Managing Tomorrow’s Workforce Challenges: A Look Inside the Report

“As talent and business leaders look to the future, a strategic understanding of the forces of change is essential,” says Allegis Group’s Director of Labor Market Business Intelligence Ron Hetrick. “The Global Workforce Trends Report is intended to help guide HR and business leaders looking to gain an informed perspective on dynamics shaping successful talent management strategies in a global market.”

Beyond offering a region-by-region breakdown of major trends influencing global talent supplies, the new Trends Report is available for free download and shares expert insight on evolving talent acquisition practices and the changing markets for staffing, recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and managed services provider (MSP) solutions around the world. The research reveals that workforce trends not only vary widely among regions, but they are enormously complex, and the pace of change is accelerating.

Notable trends include:

• U.S.: The U.S. economy has been an effective job creator, and skilled workers remain scarce. The need for cost control and efficiency will consequently be part of an effective procurement and contingent workforce strategy. Other factors including retention and talent quality may compel planners to increase wages more quickly in the future.
• U.K.: Brexit is a potential disruptor to longer-term hiring initiatives, yet job vacancies are at record highs following the 2009 economic crisis with a shortage of skilled workers to fill them. The U.K’s mature market is conducive to the use of contingent workers, Indian offshoring, and contingent RPO, but that maturity may also slow MSP and RPO growth compared to the rest of Europe.
• Primary Eurozone: France and Italy maintain unemployment rates of 10 percent or greater. The region is also facing a high level of retirements, projected to continue for the next several years, as well as a shortage of STEM workers, and a surplus of low-level office and industrial workers. Further, the rate of RPO growth is expected to be higher in Europe, and contingent RPO may contribute to that growth. A focus on flexibility will be imperative for companies navigating these markets.
• APAC: Japan represents the dangers that extreme labor tightness can put on GDP while India embodies the opposite: a potential labor supply to help other nations struggling to find enough skilled workers. Improved training and access to workers across boundaries will become an economic necessity in the region. RPO and MSP markets also have room to grow in size and sophistication.

Gain more informed perspectives about the changing workforce and the new priorities facing talent and business leaders by downloading your copy of the Global Workforce Trends Report today.