A Wall Street Journal report indicates many business owners are getting a lot less picky when it comes to new hires’ qualifications. This new trend is seeing many employers drop or lower degree, work experience, and background check requirements in an effort to address staffing shortages.
“I just need to bring somebody in, I’ll do my best to train them, ill see what I can do with this resource, and we might get them up to speed because I am really hurting,” UNO Professor Mark Rosa told WWL when asked about the local business sentiment on the labor market.
Rosa added the ongoing staffing shortages are resulting in more strain on those who are in the workforce, and for many businesses, it’s just better to have somebody there doing the job than to have the perfect candidate.
Over the past few decades, the burden of training costs has largely been shifted from businesses onto workers, but with this new, tighter labor market UNO Business Professor Mark Rosa said the pendulum is starting to swing back. That’s going to mean higher costs for business owners.
“It’s very expensive, what happens if the person doesn’t work out? you’ve done all of that, you try to bring them up to speed, maybe for some reason it’s not for them, they leave,” said Rosa.
Rosa warned that consumers should expect, for now, that when dealing with firms and seeking out business services that the overall experience level of their workers will be lower. He said the fact that three million people took early retirement during the pandemic is having a big impact on the quality of services provided because a huge amount of institutional knowledge was lost, all at one time.
This new trend is great news for workers without a college degree. The Wall Street Journal’s Chip Cutter told Gordon Deal last week that their analysis shows, at the current pace, 1.4 million additional jobs will be open to people without college degrees over the next five years, compared to pre-pandemic hiring patterns. Rosa said now is the time to go after that dream job you’ve always wanted, or change into a new career field, even if you don’t have all of the qualifications that may have been required in the past.
“It’s like, I’ve never done this before, but none of us dropped out of the womb having experience anywhere, so if you have a good head on your shoulders, that will go a long way,” said Rosa.
