Employers may not know exactly what the economy’s future holds, but they believe some kind of change is coming, and the say it’s going to impact their ability to hire.
iHire’s 2023 State of Online Recruiting Report found that more than a third of employers, 35%, expect economic uncertainty to impact their hiring in the coming year. Seventy percent said the same thing about talent shortages.
Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds, 63%, said a flood of unqualified applicants is their biggest recruiting challenge. On the other hand, 43% said their main concern is that they’re attracting too few candidates.
All this is happening as more organizations see an easing of the Great Resignation. In 2023, about half of employers said they experienced staff turnover, down 9% from 2022. Sixteen percent fewer (36%) anticipate challenges with retention. Meanwhile, 47% of job seekers were employed and looking for work, a 19% drop year-over-year. That, iHire observed, indicates more workers are staying put.
The Ripple of AI
For all the talk we hear about AI, advanced technology hasn’t made the inroads many industry observers seem to believe it has. Just 5% of employers said they’re using AI in their recruiting right now, and most of those efforts encompass tasks like writing job descriptions or screening resumes. Jobseekers, also, are talking about AI more than they’re using it. Just 3% of candidates use AI tools to tackle tasks like writing resumes.
Meantime, communications is an issue on both sides of the TA equation. More than half of employers, 54%, are frustrated by candidates ghosting them, for example. Almost as many candidates, 53%, said the same thing about employers. Their top job-search challenge, they said, is the age-old “applying and not hearing back.”
“More employers were concerned with talent shortages than the economy and budget cuts in 2023,” said Andre Riley, iHire’s chief revenue officer. Organizations that prioritize efficient recruiting by focusing on the quality of candidates over quantity and building their talent pipelines while keeping current employees engaged will come out on top “no matter how the labor market evolves,” he believes.
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