Employers still face significant hiring barriers despite cooling labor market—here’s the No. 1 challenge

The labor market is finally cooling down, but employers say they still face the same hiring woes they encountered during the height of the pandemic: finding qualified talent promptly. 

On Tuesday, the job site Indeed released new survey data sharing the top five barriers leaders say they are experiencing in hiring. They include: 

– Time it takes to hire (43%)
– Poor quality of candidates (41%)
– Competition from other companies (38%)
– Not enough applicants (31%)
– Lack of people resources to manage the hiring process (26%)

Raj Mukherjee, Indeed’s EVP and GM for employers, says the shrinking number of HR professionals has quickly become one of the most acute barriers to hiring today. 

“As the economic situation gets tightened, the HR and the TA departments get impacted through layoffs,” he says. “You have fewer people to hire for or manage your HR processes, so that is becoming more and more challenging as time passes.”

But employers still need talent in key roles like IT and sales, which align with their growth initiatives. In such areas, Mukherjee says time to hire remains the number one challenge.

“At the end of the day, the really important part is how do you accelerate the time to hire because the longer it takes for someone to hire, that’s a real disadvantage to the business. You lose money,” he says. For today’s most in-demand jobs, employers report that it can take up to 11 weeks to fill an open position, up from about seven weeks in 2021, according to a survey conducted by employment agency Robert Half.  

“The labor market is constantly evolving as we speak. It’s still highly competitive in many segments, even though there have been layoffs over the last six months or so,” says Mukherjee.

Amber Burton
amber.burton@fortune.com
@amberbburton

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Continued layoffs of DEI professionals are hampering employers’ efforts to make good on DEI commitments. Nichole Barnes Marshall, global head of inclusion and diversity at Pinterest, says cutting DEI roles will have far-reaching consequences that some leaders fail to anticipate. 

“It is when companies are under pressure, I believe, when your values really show up,” Marshall tells Fortune. “When DEI roles are cut, it is saying something about the companies and the priority of the work.”

Around the Table

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- Recent layoffs show just how much Americans overemphasize work in their conceptions of self-worth. Wired

- The number of job listings promising relocation packages skyrocketed recently as employers eagerly push for an office return. Wall Street Journal

- The unspoken truth about why bosses want to end remote work: They think it’s for sissies. Insider

- Best Buy will lay off hundreds of store employees as sales of consumer electronics falter. CNBC

- Federal agencies missed warning signs about a rise in migrant child labor. New York Times

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