Difficult to fill vacancies in 2024

February 19th, 2024 | Industry News

As the American manufacturing sector reports a substantial worker shortage, the UK is experiencing a completely different phenomenon. Online recruitment software aggregates and national statistics both reveal that while America increased manufacturing vacancies by 23,000 in January 2024 (and already had over 600,000 vacant positions in December 2023) in the UK vacancy rates in manufacturing were down 30% over the 12 months from December 2022 to December 2023. This divergence in experience is partly economic; there is a difference in the way that older workers retire and young people have to choose between college and work in the two countries and also partly around recruitment itself. In the UK the best recruitment CRM is being used to help manufacturers and building companies, transfer, relocate or recruit staff to local need, this isn’t as possible in the USA where state boundaries can make it difficult for all but the very biggest corporations to relocate staff across state lines.

AI, recruitment and job seekers

However, there are clear convergencies in other areas of recruitment. In the UK there have been notable difficulties filling care roles (both institutional and home-based) although it is also true that posted vacancies in this area have dropped by nearly 60% in the past 12 months, and similar problems are reported in the USA. Recruitment website design is becoming more niche and micro-site, with Artificial Intelligence (AI) playing a role in serving such micro-sites as a source of news and information that can bring potential candidates to such sites repeatedly while they look for work, or in the process of becoming ready to change jobs.

Also in the USA, a survey showing that only 36% of workers are planning to change jobs in the first half of 2024, a drop from 49% in the previous six months, seems to be mirrored in the UK. In the USA people are reported to be unwilling to give up the flexibility their current position offers, and in the UK people are also less likely to change role, although the reason here seems to be more that people are unwilling to give up the security of their current job for the uncertainty of a new one. Recruiting software reveals that the under thirties are around three times as likely to move as the over fifties, who are benefiting from higher salaries and better perks as a result of longer periods of employment. The one area that is bucking the trend is remote work; recruitment database software shows that over fifties are definitely willing to find a new job, if it offers them more chance to work from home than their current position.