“When we have a great deal of uncertainty, like the current environment, everyone wants to know what’s coming. From increased demand for remote work options to wage inflation, the labor market landscape has changed significantly since the pandemic. Add in an ongoing labor shortage despite increasing layoffs, and employers are going to continue to rely on staffing firms. Temporary staffing is always going to be an integral part of the labor force.”
 – Daniel Culbertson, senior economist, Indeed Hiring Lab

Late last year, Indeed and Glassdoor teamed up to provide employers with guidance to navigate the ever-changing labor market. They drew insights from data gleaned from the people interacting with the two platforms — which combined comprise 80% of the people actively looking for jobs. The resulting “Indeed & Glassdoor’s Hiring and Workplace Trends Report 2023” identifies several employment and workplace trends and provides a unique view of the labor market as it stands today and how it my look tomorrow. In this interview, Culbertson explores some of the findings — such as job seekers’ pay and flexibility expectations and the DE&I landscape — and touches on best practices staffing firms may incorporate to compete in the labor market.

Daniel Culbertson

Senior Economist, Indeed Hiring Lab

What was the most interesting finding in this report to you and why?

A lot of the information was interesting to me. If I had to pick one, the piece that I liked the most was the chart showing the most common dollar amount that job seekers enter in the search bar when they come to Indeed.com.

We looked at the trends for $15 an hour and $20 an hour. As a search term, $15 an hour was the most popular numerical search term pre-pandemic, but over the course of the recovery from the pandemic — especially in 2021, when a lot of employers were trying to hire at the same time and wages were being driven upward — we saw $20 an hour overtake $15 an hour to become the most dominant numerical value search term. And I like this because it’s a very clear indicator of a change in the labor market. Our data shows wages growing strongly through 2021 and into the beginning of 2022, but this is a very specific indicator that provides some insight into how job seekers are searching for that higher pay.

Since the pandemic, workplace flexibility — such as remote work — continues to get a lot of attention. What is your data telling you about this trend?

We can see that data from two different angles: Our job postings data shows demand for remote work from the employer side, and then our job search data reflects job seekers’ interest in remote work. And what we found in the report is that neither one of those has slowed down all that much — and this is inside the US and in some markets outside the US. Demand for remote work as measured through job postings is still quite high. And then when you look at this through job seekers as well, job seekers are certainly no less keen on remote work. Our research indicates the percentage of US job postings mentioning remote work increased to 8.6% in September 2022 from 2.9% in September 2018. And remote job searches in the US still outpace pre-pandemic levels, jumping to 9.8% in 2022 from 1.7% in 2018.

What about roles that cannot be remote? How can employers provide the flexibility that on-site workers crave?

Indeed has done a lot of work in general about workplace well-being and happiness, and flexibility is one of those things that we’ve really dived into. For instance, when we use the word “flexibility,” what do we actually mean? Yes, being able to work remotely when needed is the No. 1 thing people associate it with, but it’s also other things as well.

In fact, the majority of jobs in the US labor market cannot be done remotely at all. For those jobs that are on-site, any benefits or other means of flexibility that the employer can provide can make their roles much more appealing to job seekers.

You might offer shorter days for parents or stipends toward childcare because that’s a sticking point for a lot of workers. Let them set their own working hours, get overtime if needed or take hours away. Flexible scheduling or shift swapping. Take time off and not get pressured about it. Whatever benefits employers can offer that are along those lines, being clear about them in the job posting — as well as throughout the recruiting and the interview process — will help attract and recruit talent.

While flexibility does mean a lot of different things to a lot of people, the underlying theme is that people need to have the time and flexibility to live their lives, and I think that's a significant change we’ve seen in search behaviors post-pandemic.

These sound like important strategies to attract talent in the tight job market, which as your report indicates looks to be on the horizon for the foreseeable future. How could this affect temporary staffing firms, and how can they position themselves to best benefit in this environment?

Temporary staffing is always going to be an integral part of the labor force. In good times and bad times and in between, staffing’s always going to be important. So, at a time like right now where we’re a little in between, companies are going to turn to staffing firms to help with their HR needs because it’s a very difficult market. And when we see hiring pick back up, then that’s going to be another time when staffing is leaned on as well.

To be prepared for all of these different scenarios, staffing companies can instill best practices in their recruiters suitable for the current labor market. For example, we’ve gone through a lot of transition the past couple years, so many candidates out there will have gaps on résumés; instill best practices so your recruiters dig deeper. There will be candidates out there who have experienced a lot of job hopping, so not screening them out is another best practice.

It is a very tight labor market; talent’s very difficult to find. Being willing to bring on folks with a little bit less experience is a great way to deepen your talent pool. Additionally, consider fair-chance and second-chance hiring. If there’s any accommodations or allowances that can be made for whatever someone has on their background or on their criminal record, that’s a great way to deepen your talent pool as well.

The report found waning focus on DE&I efforts among corporate leadership. How can this impact the hiring organization?

One thing I would note is that the decline is pretty small. When we look across the different markets, when we look at the percentage of benefits reviews reporting a diversity program, those are all still elevated above where they were just a couple years ago.

Still, I don’t think it's time for employers to take their foot off the pedal when it comes to diversity efforts and programs. We still know that these are important to job seekers. We know from our own survey that 62% of workers in the US said they would consider turning down a job offer or leaving a company if they didn't think their manager supported DE&I initiatives. Given what we’ve already discussed in terms of the tight talent market, the importance of DE&I to the job seeker is evidence enough that this isn’t really the time for employers to back away from that.

DE&I is just one component of a company’s culture. What other insights on culture did the research find that staffing firms can learn from?

Workplace well-being is a big part of the conversation right now, and it’s really being driven by the employees, not the employers. When you think about staffing companies, there is the additional challenge of having to manage workplace well-being for people that are actually not at your site. It’s a hard aspect for you to control when you’re not with those people every day and they are in someone else’s workplace.

But workplace well-being isn’t just benefits that somebody gets on site. Workplace well-being is how they show up to work. It’s how they’re paid fairly, how much stress they have and how effective their manager is. So, from a workplace well-being perspective, a lot of it is tied to just how you treat people and do good work, and it’s not necessarily tied to the benefits and who may or may not provide them. But it is definitely a focus, and it’s a focus that’s really being driven by the people.

And so, if you don’t have a culture of workplace well-being, it will very much show in your brand, and it will show in how people show up to work. That’s why it’s one of the five focuses of this year. Indeed’s actually about to launch our bigger new workplace well-being information later this year, so it’s an area that we’re very interested in, and we see a lot of the best employers focusing on it.

Resources: To keep apprised of the labor market, go to hiringlab.org and glassdoor.com/research.

To learn more about how data from Indeed Hiring Lab or Glassdoor can help you prepare for the changing labor market, follow www.indeed.com/lead.