Jobs Companies Struggle to Fill

Here is an excellent article that was published in The Wall Street Journal:

Those waiting on the sidelines of the labor market may find it’s a good time to jump back in.
Companies are hiring, and in some fields the number of open jobs exceeds the number of qualified or available workers. That means opportunities for someone willing to consider a career switch or pick up some new skills.

The imbalance is striking in relatively unsung occupations like purchasing managers, window trimmers, and truck drivers, according to recent data from labor-market analysis firm Economic Modeling Specialists International and its parent company, CareerBuilder.

And unlike most of the science, technology and healthcare positions that receive a great deal of attention about worker shortages, those three jobs don’t necessarily require a college education.
Trucking comes out on top for sheer number of unfilled openings. An average of 242,000 openings were posted on job boards per month between January 2013 and August 2014, while only 132,000 openings on average, or 54%, were filled per month, at a median wage of about $18 per hour, according to EMSI and CareerBuilder. While jobs are filled on a rolling basis and sometimes with a long lag time, the data offers a rough proxy for worker shortages.

“Trucking is a place where someone can get skilled up very quickly” with classes that lead to a commercial driver’s license, said CareerBuilder CEO Matt Ferguson.

Other middle-skill jobs—those that require education beyond high school but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree—have shortages, too. Purchasing managers can earn nearly $50 per hour, yet half of openings are going unfilled. One-fifth of medical records technician jobs, with a median wage of $16.81, appear to be vacant.

With any luck, for both job seekers and employers, 2015 will be the year when some of these gaps begin to close. After all, millions of people remain out of work.

“Underneath the skills gap is an information gap,” said Matt Sigelman, CEO of Burning Glass, another labor market analysis firm. “Job seekers don’t know where the opportunities are, and [colleges] aren’t necessarily aware of these opportunities or think of them as high-paying. That means it takes longer for these kinds of gaps to resolve themselves.”

Experts also predict that the pressure will drive stronger wage growth in the near future, a phenomenon that may have already begun, based on data from the Labor Department showing that hourly wages rose 0.4% in November.

“If employers are not staying competitive with compensation, it will be even more difficult to attract and keep those workers,” said Mr. Ferguson.