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The last six months were a rollercoaster for the entire world. Hardly had the world recovered from the aftermath of COVID-19 and it got held in the grip of war between Russia and Ukraine. While this crisis has directly impacted a few sectors like energy and oil & gas, other sectors too have borne the brunt of this friction. This blog shares a brief but essential view of the events that happened in 2022 and the consequences and anticipations for the remainder of 2022.

USA

The largest share of the Staffing industry comes from the USA. However, one of the biggest and most prominent shares within it is occupied by the Technology and IT sector. According to a market report, the IT Staffing industry size was USD 32.50 billion in 2021, and is expected to grow to USD 43.68 billion by 2027.

Due to the rise in inflation and the jobs mandating employees to work from the office, employees have started demanding higher wages/salaries. In some cases, employees have a strong resistance to resuming work from the office and are ready to switch to companies offering and supporting permanent work from home. A recent example was the tech giant Apple, which faced a setback in the form of a demand for a union by the employees at the Apple stores. This incident pressured them to increase the minimum wage from USD 20 to USD 22 as an immediate solution.

In yet another case, this time of a beverage giant, Starbucks, the CEO, Howard Schultz, tried his best to convince his employees to return to full-time work from the office setup. But, Schultz says his efforts have been futile. “No, they are not coming back at the level I want them to,” he added. “I think people will come back two to three days a week, and that’s the way it is.”

Such scenarios clearly indicate the need for employers to marry the idea of adapting to the changing work culture and employee psychology. This is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the Great Resignation. Thus, the Staffing companies now need more support in sourcing and mapping than ever, as finding quality candidates and filling the vacant seats are becoming bottlenecks.

The other major part of the Staffing industry is held by the Healthcare sector in the US. However, according to a survey, the Healthcare staffing market was projected to decline from USD 21.4 billion in 2021 to USD 19.8 million in 2022. This can directly be linked to the continued burnout amongst nurses and other social care employees, which has led to almost one-third of them leaving their job or the Healthcare industry. This year alone, nearly 1.7 million people have quit their healthcare jobs—equivalent to almost 3% of the healthcare workforce each month, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to a survey, another reason for this healthcare workforce quitting the job was their willingness to have the flexibility and/or pursue their passion.

By now, we would have derived that the Healthcare industry is facing a significant labor crunch. According to preliminary November 2021 data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hospital subsector’s workforce has dipped by nearly 90,000 since March 2020. Among nurses alone, the American Nurses Association expects more than 100,000 registered nursing jobs will be available annually by next year.

Yet another report by ‘The American Nurses Association’ states that more registered nursing positions are open in 2022 than in any other profession. Further, with more than 500,000  Registered Nurse (RNs) expected to retire in 2022, there’s a need for 1.1 million new RNs for increased demand and retiree replacement. The Healthcare industry might face a nursing shortage if those hires aren’t made.

To tackle this situation, the US Staffing market made some unique collaborations. The immigration for healthcare professional service provider companies is merging or being purchased by healthcare recruitment agencies. Example – AMN Healthcare Acquires Connetics USA, an International Nurse and Allied Recruitment Company. This step is clearly taken to tackle the depleting workforce. Making it easier for the immigrant healthcare workers to work in the US was a mandate, while the agencies collaborating for the effective placement were equally required and helped towards re-establishing the balance in the healthcare workforce. The good news is that total employment in the Healthcare industry is projected to grow from 153.5 million jobs to 165.4 million jobs from 2020 to 2030, as announced by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in September 2021. This growth represents an additional 11.9 million jobs with an annual growth rate of 0.7%, which is higher than previous projections at the beginning of the pandemic.

The crucial stage that the Staffing companies are and will be in, in the coming future clearly indicates them needing immense support in terms of database regeneration exercise as the current database would soon be invalid. To help the medical systems run smoothly throughout the country, the Staffing companies would need constant empowerment, and that’s where the right partners come into play.

Australia and New Zealand (ANZ)

The ANZ region is seeing strength in the labor market. According to data from ANZ Bank, job advertisements in Australia rose by 18.4% in June 2022 on a seasonally adjusted basis when compared to the same period in June 2021. When compared to January 2020, job ads were up 58.9%, while the number of job ads totalled 243,523 in June 2022.

By job ad volume, among industries, Hospitality and Tourism reported an increase of 40% year-on-year, while Retail and Consumer Products (24%) also reported high growth. This can be clearly reciprocated with lifting the travel restrictions imposed due to covid conditions. On the other hand, the Construction sector recorded a decline of 12% while Information & Communication Technology was down by 2%. On a monthly basis, Accounting was flat at 0% while no regions reported growth. Construction reported the biggest decline at 14%. Manufacturing, Transport, and Logistics saw a 1% decline.

The IT sector saw a boom in demand for leadership roles resulting in increased salaries. For example, the average pay of a Chief Technical Officer went up by AUD 30,000 from last year to an annual average of AUD 330,000 this year.

However, the rise was already on the table for all the sectors as the Australian minimum wages rose to 5.2%, with minimum award wages increasing 4.6% from July 1. Given this will directly impact about 22% of the workforce, it will add about 0.5% to wage growth compared to the last financial year. This has some consequences on the economy, and the pressure will be on the Reserve Bank of Australia as it considers inflationary pressures.

On the other hand, the effects of Great Resignation have already started to show up. As a result, the former access that the hiring managers had to the multiple options of ideal candidates for a particular role will now be limited. Currently, it is more of a bet than a sure-shot scenario when it comes to hiring. To mitigate the risks borne by hiring the candidates purely on the forecast, the companies should now consider focusing, developing, upskilling, and retaining the current employees.

Employees have now tasted the fruit of working from home, and seem to accept the customized hybrid working style over the entire work from home or back to office model. The flexible working style clearly is working for them as they are no longer juggling to balance their out-of-work priorities, while maintaining their social life.

From a panoramic view, the picture depicts a high demand with a shortage of supply in the candidates. The take-away for the recruitment agencies in the ANZ region is that there would be increased competition amongst the companies to hire the best candidates that match their working policies. Therefore, the agencies need to increase their sourcing activities along with the quality of submissions to win the war of talent.

As an end note, the results of the current war crisis were, are, and will be manifold across the globe. It will be interesting to see what exactly unfolds in the upcoming months for the Recruitment and Staffing industry.

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