The Labor Shortage Wake-Up Chart is Here

It’s likely that in the next few months our national workforce data will get closer to normal. Open jobs will decrease some and the unemployment percentage will rise a bit, leading reporters to say that “The Great Resignation” is behind us.

Labor Shortage is Equal to Workforce Shortage

Let’s then get ahead of the curve and say “workforce shortage” instead. And we’ll be saying “workforce shortage” for a long time. So says the Census Bureau which has released this chilling chart:[i]

The data is painfully clear, that we will not have enough workers to fill our open jobs for a long time. Note that 2025 is the bottom, and the following few years are as bad or worse as our most recent couple of years.

The measurement here is how many among us are in the age group of 18 to 64. This does not account for the growing number of people who will retire prior to age 64, or the exponentially-growing number among us who are choosing to become self-employed, or those who just choose not to work. This chart is age-driven only.

So if you have a fixed number of workers who fall far short of the number of open jobs, how do you add to that number of workers? Some states are already so desperate that they are trying to legally reduce some restrictions in their child labor laws.[ii]

Immigration Issues Drives Workforce Shortage, Too

Then here’s another approach, re-stating a quote from previous editions here, published originally by the Burning Glass Institute:

“If immigration does not improve, I’m not sure how we get back to growth”.

While the approach feels right, Gallup’s finding is that Americans are more opposed to immigration today than in the past[iii]…

…while other reports say the U.S immigration system is broken, such that Canada and the UK are reaping the best world-wide STEM minds by accelerating their immigration processes.[iv]  

The consequences for businesses from the top chart here are that talent will become even more scarce, services of all types will further deteriorate, economies will suffer…and we’ll return to talk of supply chain woes and resulting inflation. And as has been true for recent years, hardly anyone will get fired because any body is better than no body at all.

The only smart way out is to retain the good workers you have…rather than constantly chase your tail by picking off what could become a scrap heap of transient workers who will leave you for fifty cents an hour. Or new hires who don’t show up for day two.

Why are Current Workers Choosing to Stay in the Workforce?  

Why do workers stay? Thousands of words have been written that supposedly answer this question. But the most qualified answer is really quite simple. Because they trust their boss. Because during their commutes to and from work…even if that means walking down their home hallway…they feel good about the people who surround them. That includes their first-line supervisor and others who that same first-line supervisor has placed within their daily work team. And that team is supportive, communicative, but most of all productive.

Too simple, you say? This was the overwhelming finding I discovered when an industrial/organizational psychology professor pointed me toward about fifty academic studies on why employees stay. In one book titled HR’s Greatest Challenge I summarized 25 of these studies so readers would learn the easy-to-grasp-but-harder-to-make-happen most important employee retention solution.

Stay Interviews then become the tool, the method, for each first-line leader to build trust one-on-one with each member of her team. Asking five carefully-researched questions, listening, probing, taking notes, building a plan…to make each employee’s day-to-day work better.

What is your company’s best employee retention solution? Try to answer this without saying something we all know they can replicate or get more of elsewhere. That omits pay, benefits, schedule, commute, career coaching…and the opportunities to complete annual engagement surveys or a one-time, ineffective exit survey when they leave.

The absolute, only thing you can offer your employees that encourages them to stay that they cannot get elsewhere is a boss they trust and a team who makes them laugh and thrive. And that starts with each first-line supervisor because employee retention is solved at the bottom of organizations and not at the top. Nor from the side with one-size-fits-all HR programs that cannot overcome an employee having a jerk boss who will drive her to leave…especially when jobs are as plentiful as they will continue to be.

You Can Cut Turnover by 20% or More, Improve Engagement and Retain Your Workforce

There is an established solution for employee turnover…start here to learn our comprehensive turnover solution, and watch the 2-minute video to open your eyes to fresh thinking for cutting turnover 20% and more. Then schedule a conversation with me at DFinnegan@C-SuiteAnalytics.com.

[i] As published here: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-real-labor-shortage-is-looming-and-everything-were-doing-is-making-it-worse-11657213385

[ii] https://www.epi.org/publication/child-labor-laws-under-attack/

[iii] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1660/immigration.aspx

[iv] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23177446/immigrants-tech-companies-united-states-innovation-h1b-visas-immigration