Global talent crunch hits record high, 54% companies globally face talent shortage

Attracting and retaining skilled workers has become a challenging affair as 54 per cent of companies globally reported talent shortages, the highest in over a decade, according to a new research by ManpowerGroup.

According to the research, 54 per cent of companies reported skill shortages with businesses in 36 out of 44 countries finding it more difficult to attract skilled talent than in 2018.

Employers in the US (69 per cent), Mexico (52 per cent), Italy (47 per cent) and Spain (41 per cent) reported the most acute shortages.

“In an increasingly tech-enabled world, people with skills are in demand,” ManpowerGroup Chairman and CEO Jonas Prising said.

“We know from conversations with candidates, clients and from our data that workers want flexibility and the opportunity to learn new skills,” Prising added.

Ahead of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos next week, we are calling for leaders to shift their workforce demands closer to the needs of in-demand talent. Creating shareholder value can only be done in conjunction with taking care of employees, customers and communities, so listening to the voice of the consumer is key, he further added.

The survey noted that workers’ demands vary as per geography, gender and stage of career cycle.

Gen Zs (aged 18-24) are ambitious, hungry for cash and career development, millennials (aged 25-34) want flexibility and challenging work, and boomers (age 55-64 and 65+) are driven by pay, challenging work and flexibility though they place the highest priority on leadership and teams.

As per the report titled “Closing the Skills Gap: What Workers Want”, the top ten most in-demand roles in 2019 are trending year over year as 80 per cent of them were also in short supply in 2018.

Healthcare professionals entered the top ten, reflecting an aging population. Meanwhile, office administrators, contact center staff, project managers, lawyers and researchers fell out of the top ten reflecting the rise in automation of routine tasks.

“As technology disrupts work, the most in-demand roles may look similar yet the skills required continue to evolve rapidly,” the research noted.

ManpowerGroup commissioned two-part research to understand attitudes towards work from individuals, and talent shortage challenges across organizations. It involved a quantitative global study of 14,091 workers, balanced 50-50 across genders, in 15 countries across all industry sectors.

Respondents were aged 18-79 and included full-time workers (78 per cent), part-time workers (13 per cent) and gig workers (12 per cent) from organizations of all sizes and at all levels of the company.

Besides, a quantitative research with 24,419 employers across six industry sectors in 44 countries and territories was also carried out.