Hiring Trends You Can Expect in 2015

Jay Ramos

January 26, 2015

Each new year brings a few twists for businesses, doesn’t it? And with those comes the need to adapt, improvise, and overcome. Although we can’t precisely predict the future, here are a few hiring trends which employers can expect to tackle in 2015:

1. The need for workers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) occupations is significantly on the rise, and so are their wages. 31% of hiring managers plan to create jobs in these areas. It won’t be enough for you to rely just on the job boards. You may need to use outside resources and passive recruitment efforts to increase your candidate flow.
2. With the Minimum Wage increase in 2015, this will be the year of a wage war…and talent will win!!!! Overall, be prepared that candidates’ and employees’ salary expectations will be higher than they were last year. (For a list of the current federal minimum wage and the rates for each state for 2015, as well as future scheduled increases in minimum wage, click here.)
3. With the improvement of the economy and more open jobs, employees will be more willing to make a job change. If you haven’t yet done performance reviews, learn more about each of your employees’ career paths. To retain A-players, you may want to reconfigure the opportunities within your organization to more closely align with their desired paths.
4. There are many more job openings than there are qualified candidates in the employment categories of manufacturing operations, IT support, software development, healthcare practitioners and technicians, and almost all kinds of sales representatives. Just because you NEED to hire one of these workers doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to find one. Again, this is where the job boards will prove an inadequate source of candidate flow. You’ll probably need to beef up your passive recruitment efforts and partner with a recruitment agency for better candidates.
5. Not all Baby Boomers are retiring as expected, which is slowing down recent college grads’ entry into the job market. But those Boomers who are retiring are accelerating the skills gap trend as they take with them knowledge that hasn’t been documented for their replacements. If you have retiring Boomers, you’ll need to activate a plan to transfer their immense knowledge to your GenXers and Millennials.

2015 could hold some tough challenges, but, employers, you can meet them head-on! Make a plan for what’s coming, and your preparedness should give you the necessary edge to make it a profitable year.

Looking for ways to attract and retain great employees? Read this.