Rumors tell us that our emerging-from-Covid world is an employee’s market. But is this true? Four recruiters weigh in on the current job market

Meet our respondents:

Racheli Eisen is the founder of IZN Recruiting, a Lakewood-based recruiting firm. Racheli has been making shidduchim between local employers and job seekers since 2015, and she has 700 happy clients in all sectors. “Everything I’m telling you today stands only for this week,” Racheli says. “Before Covid, I could tell you with confidence that ‘this is what’s done.’ Now, the market is evolving and remaking itself every week. We’re on top of it, of course. But it’s crazy out there.”

Dovid Flam is a recruiter for the Merraine Group, a national healthcare and social services recruiting firm. He has been serving as an executive search consultant for 15 years. While he works with the C-suite and upper management executives, they’re responsible for staffing their organizations, and they often give Dovid a front-row view into the challenges plaguing their hiring.

Yehoshua Ashenberg is a managing consultant for Purposive Consulting, a professional recruiting and consulting firm with a focus on director level and more senior positions. With close to a decade of experience, Yehoshua works primarily with companies with up to 1,000 employees across a host of industries.

Frimy Silberman is the talent acquisition manager and headhunter at Poel Group Staffing, a full-service executive recruitment firm with over a decade of experience in the industry. Poel Group Staffing works to match the right professional with the right job in a broad spectrum of industries.

Rumor: There’s a major shortage of employees

Dovid: It depends on which sector you’re talking about. In the social services, the turnover rate for staff (not the executives I work with directly, but the people they hire) is traditionally higher than you’ll see in other sectors, because the job is physically demanding (think bathing adult individuals), and the workers are underpaid and often undervalued. Now, they’re facing increased regulations (think vaccine mandates), which further exacerbates the issue.

There are increased openings in non-skilled labor across the board. You had a six- to eight-month gap where people were paid not to work, and companies (fast-food, retailers, etc.) have been playing catch-up ever since. They’re offering sign-on bonuses and other incentives to attract workers.

So unless someone is really dedicated to the social services, it would be easier and less risky for them if they’d get a job that doesn’t require the dedication and exertion demanded here.

This is where value comes in. If you’re not valued for the work you do in the care sector, why not just stick with menial labor? Demotivation is a big issue, especially in cases where this job isn’t the family’s primary source of income.

Finally, with that Covid gap in the workforce, lots of these people — undervalued, underpaid, and maybe not the primary breadwinner — reevaluated how they want to work. Many simply bowed out of the work force.

Racheli: In Lakewood, business is booming. People are doing well financially, and many people are relocating here and taking their offices with them. There are new businesses opening literally every week, so I’ve found that there are companies desperate to hire.

There isn’t a strong working culture like there once was. Women are decreasing their working hours because their husband’s business has taken off and the family no longer relies on her income. Increasingly, it’s because businesses are offering lucrative salaries and a flexible schedule to attract employees, so if a person can make the same money part-time as they’d been making full-time, why would they work full-time?

Yehoshua: I agree, one million percent. There’s a host of reasons contributing to this — and it’s not because people are lazy, don’t want to work, and are used to unemployment checks.

First, of the over 1 million Americans who died of Covid, 250,000 of them were employees whose roles are now vacant. Second, in terms of workforce participation, studies show that people in their early 60s are retiring at a higher rate, which is also correlated to Covid. So people who might have opted to retire and take Social Security at 67 are now choosing to do it at 62, 63, or 64, and that’s also pulled a number of people out of the labor market. In addition, immigration policies have massively lowered the rates of legal/skilled immigrants (as well as unskilled/illegal immigration). This is partially due to coronavirus, but even before Covid, the rate of immigration was significantly lower. Similarly, the birth rate in the United States is lower than the replacement level. A lot of growth in the economy needs to be supported by new bodies coming into the workforce. And we’re missing that.

So if you look at all those different factors, and the fact that a lot of people can now prioritize working remotely or working with flexible hours, we find environments where there’s a lack of available employees — and those who are available can be more demanding in terms of their compensation package, whether that’s salary, benefits, or flexibility.

Frimy: Yes, since Covid it seems like many people became too lazy to work. Many people got stimulus money and started working remotely; and many others weren’t eager to go back into the office, leading to a major shortage. The “vibe” of work itself changed.

Another major factor contributing to this shortage is that many people opened their own businesses — some because of all the loans available and others because they were laid off. There are tons of new businesses out there, which means there’s less talent available to hire.