Janice Nesamani
Northwest Asia Weekly
If you’ve walked around the neighborhood recently, you’ve probably noticed the “Hiring” signs on store windows. While they may not have signboards in their windows, medium and large companies also seem to be looking for talent.
While job growth appeared to have slowed in May, there were still 11.3 million open positions at the end of May, according to the monthly jobs report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s almost two jobs for every unemployed person. The report also tracks the Asian unemployment rate, which fell to 2.4 percent in May. With unemployment so low, organizations of all sizes are scrambling to find the right people, and if they already have the right people, they will do their best to keep them.
Take Microsoft for example. In mid-May, the company announced plans to “nearly double” its staff raise budget and expand the range of stock-based compensation it gives some employees by at least 25%. The move is to retain employees and help people deal with inflation, while also preventing the loss of its early and mid-level employees to rivals like Amazon, Google and Meta.
In an internal memo obtained by the media, CEO Satya Nadella said: “We’ve seen time and time again that our talent is in high demand because of the great work you’ve done. .”
Fortunately, John Chen, who leads Geoteaming, a company that leverages technology and risk-taking to conduct team building exercises to foster human change and become the top 1% of the world, hasn’t seen any major attrition or special take over the past year. Measures to retain talent. His lean business model works well.
“I have more than 12 contract virtual producers that I can put to work if necessary,” Chen said, adding that he doesn’t have to do anything to hire or retain talent. However, some of the clients he works with have had to.
“I just did a project for Georgia Healthcare. They’re paying tuition, signing bonuses, etc.,” Chen said.
Chen is busy while worrying about a cooling economy.
“My decision last year to continue investing in virtual and hybrid experiences is paying off. I’ve seen a lot more hybrid activity in the past year. So, I’ve bought more equipment, in addition to one of my home studios Plus, there’s a full travel studio,” he said.
Stephanie Zhu of the Centre for First Class Education said the organisation had virtually no movement since January 2022.
“However, as we transition into the summer, we do have teachers who are only available in the summer, so we know there will be some turnover in the fall,” Zhu said.
Best In Class has been very successful in hiring instructors for their online classes, as they can expand their search to other areas of Washington that were previously unavailable for in-person classes.
“On the other hand, recruitment for our in-person courses is very challenging,” Zhu said. She added: “As our clients want to return to face-to-face learning, we have to put a lot of effort into recruiting not only the right candidates, but also those who want and can teach in-person.”
The company has job openings for both online and in-person courses.
“We do try to give candidates that flexibility,” Zhu said. “We also offer higher wages for in-person teams. Since we offer classes in the afternoon or evening and on weekends, there is flexibility in scheduling if staff availability changes,” she said.
“Even with the economy cooling, Zhu said the company remains focused on recruiting the right team members. “We recognize that the success of our students comes from our excellent teachers,” she said.
Like many institutions and businesses, Bellevue College has seen an increase in staff turnover since the beginning of the year.
“Low unemployment creates a more competitive environment for recruiting and retaining employees,” said Nicole Beattie, associate director of communications at Bellevue College.
For some positions, recruiting at the Institute has become more difficult.
“We’re not seeing a similar flow of people, such as tenured faculty. However, because there are so many opportunities right now, it’s hard for us to retain some front-line service workers,” Beattie said.
“In terms of service, quality has not been compromised, but during peak enrollment periods students may find it takes longer to get a response. We recognize that we need to find greater efficiencies to keep workloads manageable,” she added.
As a state employer, Bellevue College offers limited benefits.
“However, we do have mixed/work-from-home positions and have adjusted our salary scale for our exempt positions,” Beattie said.
“We also offer more vacation and sick leave than most businesses, paid time off, excellent health insurance and great benefits that lower tuition fees,” she added.
The organization is evaluating its recruiting approach by developing a variety of recruiting and outreach practices, including community partner engagement, in an effort to adapt its approach to building its talent pipeline in response to changing market pressures.
Bellevue College has a Career Connections Center that not only connects employers with current students and alumni, but also Bellevue residents who are actively looking for work.
“So if you’re a local business looking to hire, make sure you have access to universities,” Beattie said.
More employers are reaching out to Bellevue College’s Career Connections Center to recruit students, and Beattie is also seeing an increase in flexible/hybrid opportunities.
“With regard to internships, small and medium-sized companies are actively reaching out to us to recruit interns, especially accounting firms,” Beattie said. “Out-of-state employers are even making their internships fully remote to attract more applicants. This is great news for our students as it creates more options for them.”
Another trend noted by the Career Connection Center is that life sciences industry players, such as Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, and Nanostring, are interested in attracting diverse talent to the industry.
“They have internship programs that focus on recruiting minority, underserved and students of color,” Beatty said.
While the life sciences industry is growing, the tech industry has been driving growth in and around Seattle for some time. Recently, Amazon doubled its workforce in Bellevue, surpassing T-Mobile as Bellevue’s second-largest employer. The company expects to have more than 10,000 employees working in Bellevue by the end of the summer.
Guy Palumbo, Amazon’s head of public policy for HQ1, said the East Side will be where most of the company’s future growth will be.
“Amazon is expanding outside of downtown Seattle to leverage the tech talent already on the East Side, meet workers where they want to live, and grow in a ‘business-friendly’ regulatory environment,” Palumbo told The Seattle Times.
“People join Amazon for the opportunity to build and innovate in a variety of ways for our customers, communities and employees,” said company spokeswoman Bailey Sargent. “There are tens of thousands of corporate and tech jobs available today. With options, we’ll continue to find talented people to help us shape the future of retail, robotics, healthcare, devices, cloud computing, and more.”
“We have roles to suit all backgrounds and remain committed to providing competitive compensation, top-tier benefits and career development opportunities as we hire and develop the best people,” she said.
While tech companies have always had to compete with each other to find the best talent in Seattle and the East Side, the competition has definitely gotten tougher. In healthcare, the pandemic has created recruiting challenges for itself.
MultiCare is a Tacoma-based nonprofit healthcare organization that provides healthcare to the Puget Sound region. Since January 2022, the healthcare provider has seen lower turnover rates.
“The recruitment market for our nursing services is highly competitive. We will continue to invest in finding and attracting new talent and paying competitive wages,” said Multicare spokeswoman Lori Meyers.
MultiCare is committed to strengthening and supporting its employees.
“We recently invested $53.5 million in compensating and supporting team members. We offer competitive compensation and retention bonuses to employees in many frontline and clinical positions,” Meyers said.
In addition to the salary and bonus program, MultiCare offers employees many subsidized benefits and other benefits, including generous paid vacation and sick leave, tuition assistance, wellness programs, free mental health support, and emergency funding to help employees in crisis.
Meyers added that while companies are concerned about inflation, they still believe that our market is in high demand for qualified healthcare professionals.
With high inflation and concerns about a cooling economy, financial experts want to see the job market cool, which could mean we could see a flattening of job demand, wage increases and pay increases in the coming months.
LinkedIn reported that its June hiring rate fell 5.4% month-over-month on a seasonally adjusted basis. However, LinkedIn chief economist Guy Berger said the labor market is still quite hot. He commented that overall economy hiring was 1.4% above pre-COVID levels, while tech industry hiring was still 8.6% above pre-COVID levels.
The job market is still booming for those looking to solve interesting problems, improve their finances, get a promotion, or simply seek a better work-life balance.
Janice can be reached by info@nwasianweekly.com.
