Aaron Sojourner Profile picture
Dec 16, 2021 11 tweets 4 min read Read on X
We are at a 20 year low of hiring yield = hires/opening. HR folks, you are not imagining it.

Both an unusually synchronized surge in hiring efforts across organizations as well as a low unemployment rate are driving this.

I am often asked: what can employers do?
Improvements to retention & recruitment can both increase your ability to be selective in hiring, rather than desperate.

For most, start with retention. You already convinced these people to work with you. You are in constant communication with them.

How?
Your employees know what they care about most. Find ways to hear them honestly (pulse surveys, supervisor evals, labor-mgmt partnership...).

Then deliver. Every employer made big operational changes in pandemic. Use job & org design to smooth rough edges created unintentionally
Labor is in the drivers seat right now.

The figure shows the ratio of employee-initiated quits to employer-initiated discharges or layoffs. Highest in 20 years.

If you don't deliver, you will lose talent.
Rub is employee asks usually eat into profit/operating margins. CFO may not want to spend but will pay in turnover.

Corporate profits at record high & grew much faster rate than comp costs since 2019Q4.

Some orgs enjoying positive productivity & demand shocks & are flush. Use $
Others are struggling to stay above water, often smaller or legacy employers or those with public goods aspects that struggle to capture value they create.

Listening & job & org design is what you have. Smooth edges. Reduce time on least productive tasks.
Improve occupational & public health. Have a healthy staff. Lose less sick & personal days.

Short staffing creates a vicious cycle where the job is worse for people there & so it's hard to hire to alleviate short staffing.

Make a push to break into a better equilibrium.
On recruitment, standard stuff. Know your competitive advantages as an employer.

Also, figure out what appeals differentially to your best hires.

Communicate those.

You've failed to attract specific people you want. Offer to pay them for a failed-hire interview. Find out why.
Smart employers are recognizing the talent of Americans with a disability.

Their employment rate is above its pre-pandemic level, unlike for those without a disability.

COVID-forced shifts toward remote work may have yielded increases in their relative productivity.
We are experiencing a #GreatReallocation, not a #GreatResignation.

Employment rates & number of jobs have risen dramatically since spring. They're not falling.

Most quits are to better jobs, driven by change in employer productivity rankings & circumstances of workers' lives.
If you can't compete successfully for talent, that's hard for you but great for people quitting for better fits.

If you have to close shop,💔. Silver lining, lots of places are recruiting.

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More from @aaronsojourner

Jun 9, 2023
This paper is SOOOOO interesting. I love it.

They posit 3 types of Americans with different relations to the labor market. Folks in:

- primary enjoy steady work, any job search quick.

- 2ndary struggle to find jobs, move across U, E, N a lot.

- 3iary mostly out.
These bring the Dual Labor Market hypothesis home to the U.S.

Interprets short-panel linked CPS data combining:

- a hidden Markov model of observed transitions by latent type,

- a measurement model uses many rich CPS questions to assign each person type probabilities.
The primary market, estimated to represent 55% of American population, enjoys super-high LFPR/EPOP, super-low UR.

2ndary (14%): in LF 73% of time but unemployed a third of that time.

3riary (32%): out 91% of time. UR intermediate when in.

Heterogeneity that matters. Image
Read 11 tweets
May 21, 2023
Amazon warehouse mgmt uses intensive, opaque monitoring as input to discipline, pay, promotion, & firing decisions.

MN just passed a law requiring employers like them to make such standards, incentives, & data transparent to workers.

Fascinating on a few fronts... Image
No one likes working to unclear standards.

But mgmt often prefers it,⬇️some gaming &⬆️ managers' discretionary power.

Even if mgmt uses clear well-justified rules, if workers don't know them, feel arbitrary.

Mgmt says, trust us. Many workers do not.
thenation.com/article/politi…
In a workplace with new tech-enabled, intensive, high-stakes monitoring, it's interesting to see workers demand & win transparency of rules & of data.

Amazon warehouse workers in MN have actively pushed to improve working conditions for a decade @AwoodMpls. This is latest win.
Read 5 tweets
May 18, 2023
Lower-income Americans often need access to $ NOW!

Speedier payments benefit those most in need.

Instant payments, like @federalreserve’s FedNow coming July, would create billions in consumer value.

🧵my new paper w/the great @ryanmcdevitt
direct.mit.edu/rest/article-a… Image
We measure willingness-to-pay (WTP) for $ today versus $ soon.

Use transaction data from a bank that offers both bank accts (BA) & check-cashing (CC), unusual.

Usually, 2 services offered by different bizs = tough to leverage customer choices to credibly isolate WTP.
@springbankny was 1st new S. Bronx-based bank in 25 years when in 2007 when started as Check Spring Bank. Later I served on & chaired bank’s board.

Aimed to deliver financial services value to S. Bronx community, compete head-to-head with check cashiers.
spring.bank/about-us Image
Read 12 tweets
Mar 28, 2023
Wealthiest 0.1% of Americans saw 5.0% of their wealth disappear from the quarter before the Fed started hiking rates in 2022Q1 to 2022Q4

The next 0.9% saw 7% of their wealth disappear

In contrast, the least-wealthy half of Americans saw their (much smaller) wealth rise 17%
The price of Fed action to fight inflation has so far been paid mostly by wealthier Americans whose assets in stocks, crypto, & elsewhere deflated.

If Fed causes employers to start destroying jobs in the real economy, the price burden will shift dramatically.
This is how it started and the labor market has held up remarkably well. The Fed can break it though.

Hard-landing advocates claim doing so is the only way to bring down inflation.
Read 6 tweets
Jan 29, 2023
10% of America's abt 155 million employees belong to a union.

+1 percentage point a year requires +1.55 million net members if employment flat.

In 2022, union membership rose 273K, 6X smaller.
Estimated +273K from @BLS_gov worker survey. Reflects net hiring by union employers, priv (+193K) + public (+80K) sector, & new organizing inside & outside NLRB.

Abt 52K private sector workers voted to newly unionize in 2022, eyeballing @KevinReuning's NLRB data. 30X smaller.
@BLS_gov @KevinReuning The AFL-CIO's strategy aims to organize 1 million workers over 10 yrs, +100K/yr pace.

That's either 37% of the 2022 pace if it includes all change or less than 2X 2022's pace if newly unionized only.

Is this under-promising to over-deliver?
reuters.com/world/us/us-la…
Read 8 tweets

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