Let’s start the week with some good news.
People seem to like their jobs. The Conference Board has released data showing that 62.3% of US workers are satisfied with their job as of November 2022, the highest share since the business research organization started the survey in 1987. That number was 54% in 2021. Why? Mainly due to hybrid work arrangements, job flexibility, and the tight labor market that has allowed people to leave jobs they hate for jobs they like (or at least hate less). There’s a gender component here — Women were less satisfied overall than men in the 26 categories surveyed, including leave policies, promotions, and culture. The most significant gap was in job security: 68.7% of men felt satisfied with job security, compared to 61.8% of women.
ADP calls the current landscape the “Big Stay” or perhaps “the labor market’s settling down period.” March’s quit rate was 2.5%, less than the 2.9% a year prior, and monthly job openings are shrinking. “The great resignation, as it came to be known, was fueled by abundant job opportunities, labor shortages, and big pay increases for workers who quit one job to take another,” ADP wrote. “A year later, all three of these dynamics are abating, and the great resignation itself is looking like a thing of the past.”
I’ll note some data I did already cover in this context: 79% of workers recently hired after a tech-company layoff or termination landed their new job within three months of starting their search. And a skills shortage in tech still si there – Gartner confirmed it in a study last year, with 86% of CIOs saying they were experiencing more competition for qualified candidates and 73% worried about IT talent attrition.
The new element to add is an Insider piece called “The Forever Labor Shortage.” Here’s the passage to line up your interest.
Despite all the talk of how “no one wants to work anymore,” there’s actually a higher share of 25- to 54-year-olds with a job today than before the pandemic. And the shortage is just getting started. The Congressional Budget Office projects the potential labor force to expand by a mere 3.6% between 2022 and 2031 — one-eighth of the pace in the 1970s. Over the following decade, that growth is projected to slow even more to 2.9%. That means employers face decades of an essentially stagnant labor pool.
The article continues, projecting what’s to come as higher salaries, better benefits and working conditions, and an expansion of whom employers hire.
Why do we care?
Don’t believe all the hype about the death of remote work. Not in that landscape; I didn’t even dive into the growing four-day workweek story again.
How much is this story a nonstory? The Budget Office’s projections offering decades of a stagnant labor pool is an excellent way of saying this is just how it is. Thus, is it even a story if these are the conditions of business?
It seems unwise to be entirely dismissive of the dynamics listed – job satisfaction, quit rates, and unemployment impact the ability to conduct business and move customers’ needs. But if they are a constant too, how much do they matter?
I’m not sure I have a great answer, and this is distinctly a time I’d love to hear from listeners.
