Early last year, I highlighted a story in the New York Times about the alarming trends in the FAA and the looming shortage of air traffic controllers. Well, it’s a year later, and the problem is just as bad, if not worse, with 15,000 air traffic controllers (70% of the FAA’s employees) expected to retire by 2015. Maybe some of that TARP money should go to schools that can train people to fill those jobs and cash incentives to get people to enroll. If people are willing to enlist in the military as a preferred alternative to unemployment, they’d certainly be willing to accept the stress of a career as an air traffic controller. The schools would benefit from the ’stimulus’ and the students would receive training that guarantees them lifelong employment. Such a program could also get 15,000+ people back to work. That might be a small number given the millions that are out of work, but it certainly beats a cash payout to guys like John C. Hope III who has no intention of doing anything but pocketing the $300 million handout he received from taxpayers.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the hardest jobs to fill at the moment, even in a tough economy are:

1. Engineers

2. Machinists & Machine Operators

3. Skilled Manual Trades

4. Technicians

5. Sales Representatives

6. Accounting & Finance Professionals

7. Mechanics

8. Laborers

9. IT

10. Production Operators

Given our experience in helping employers find qualified candidates for their openings, I’d say the WSJ has it pretty much dead on the mark. The only glaring omission in the list is nurses and other healthcare professionals, which probably jumps to #1 on the list.

In an excellent article this week (Lexington|Help Not Wanted), The Economist argues that the absurdly low cap on H1B visas is proving to be devastating to the U.S. economy. Allowing only 85,000 qualified immigrants to enter the country per year to start companies, practice medicine, advance science, etc. makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. As the article points out, 70 of the 300 American Nobel prize winners since 1901 are immigrants, 40% of PhDs in science and engineering are earned by immigrants, and a similar percentage of patents filed in the U.S. are done so by immigrants. Roughly 25% of the IT companies in Silicon Valley are founded by Chinese or Indian entrepreneurs, and Sun Microsystems, Google, and Intel had immigrants among their founders. The argument that these immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans possesses no merit whatsoever, as it’s estimated by Bill Gates that for every foreigner granted an H1B visa, 5 jobs are created for Americans. Most economists agree.

This ridiculous policy stands as yet another perfect example of the nonsensical drivel coming out of Washington these days. (and though the Bush Administration has undoubtedly become the worst abomination in U.S. Presidential history, I am referring here to both sides of the aisle in Congress). As the article asks in conclusion, making reference to Mike Judge’s new movie, “How do you win the global war for talent when Congress is already in the hands of the idiocracy?”

Tags: H1B Visas, Misguided U.S. Policy, How To Improve U.S. Competitiveness, How To To Create Jobs In The U.S., H1B Visas Create Jobs, Immigrants Strengthen America, Bill Gates, The Economist, Mike Judge, Idiocracy, Costco University, Why Can’t Washington Get Anything Right?

Air-traffic controllers, many of which are just beginning to reach retirement age, are retiring at a much faster rate than expected. Though it was known that many controllers are becoming eligible for retirement given the mass hiring that took place following the 1981 firing of 12,000 air-traffic controllers by President Reagan, the pace of the exodus is far higher than anyone predicted. The crisis has not only led to more delays in air travel, it is a major cause for concern over the safety of airline travel. In a recent New York Times article, a retired air-traffic controller stated that, “It’s amazing that [a catastrophic accident] hasn’t happened so far. The staffing issue has a direct impact on the safety of the public. It has to.”

Staffing emergencies have been declared in ‘high-intensity facilities’ that include Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Southern California. Staffing issues in general are being blamed for about 25% of the travel delays around the country. It is a horrific development and brings a whole new intensity to the alarms being sounded over the issues surrounding retiring baby-boomers.

(By the way, I tried to link to the story in the New York Times, but my multiple attempts to find the story on that site failed. Why does the New York Times have one of the worst search engines of any major media site on the web? It is absolutely horrendous…..maybe Marc Andreessen is correct).

Tags: Air-Traffic Controllers, Retiring Air-Traffic Controllers, Airlines, Air Travel Delays, Baby-Boomers, Retiring Baby-Boomers, Retiring Boomers, Air Travel, Airline Safety, Air Travel, How Safe Is It To Fly?, Workforce Trends, Labor Market Trends, Who Is Retiring, Shortage of Controllers

Novations, a business performance consulting company, just released a study on what companies are doing to capture the knowledge that will be lost as baby boomers retire in increasing numbers in the years ahead. Shockingly, the study found that 73% have no knowledge transfer process in place, and an additional 23% have only an informal knowledge transfer process in place. So only 4% of the companies surveyed had a formal knowledge transfer process in place.

Of the 73% of companies without a process currently in place, 44% have no plans for doing anything to capture the knowledge that will be lost as boomers retire. This is either a sign that companies are woefully underprepared for the tectonic shifts that will be occurring in the U.S. workforce in the coming years or a sad indictment of the lack of knowledge that boomers possess.

Tags: Retiring Baby Boomers, Knowledge Transfer, Boomers, Baby Boomers, How Will Companies Stay Competitive

The 2008 HR Trendbook had some interesting articles on a variety of topics, but two statistics caught my attention. The first was that in 2005, Hispanics represented 14% of the U.S. population but 22% of the U.S. Workforce. If trends continue, Hispanics will represent 32% of the population in 2050 and 55% of the U.S. workforce.

The second stat was very puzzling. A SHRM survey of HR managers in March/April of 2007 indicated that an astounding 36% of HR managers are only just now becoming aware of the fact that baby boomers will be retiring in the years ahead, presenting employers with incredible challenges. This is down from 38% of HR managers who were just becoming aware of the phenomena in 2005. So more than a third of HR managers were oblivious to this issue until this year? The issues surrounding retiring baby boomers stand as arguably the most pressing HR issues facing employers, and I find it hard to imagine that so many HR managers are just beginning to recognize the issue.

Don’t forget to vote for Diggings (click here) as the best recruiting blog and/or the best sourcing blog.

Tags: Workplace Statistics, Human Resources, HR Challenges, Hispanic Population, Hispanics in the U.S. Workforce, Retiring Baby Boomers, SHRM, HR Managers

Since I’m not a journalist (in case there was any doubt), and blogging isn’t my full-time occupation, and I try to balance the time I spend on this blog every day with all the other things I have to do, I don’t really mind when I miss a story I’d like to have posted on first. But John Sumser has a story on his blog that I truly would like to have written on first – being a Minnesotan that covers the employment advertising industry and the U.S. labor market, as well as a decent fan of A Prairie Home Companion. THIS  SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY POST!

Read the story here.

Tags: Jealous Blogger, Scooped By John Sumser, International Falls, Doctors Needed, Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel of recruiting bloggers at a recruiting seminar in Minneapolis. The event was organized by Paul DeBettignies (aka, MN Headhunter) and Steven Rothberg of CollegeRecruiter.com fame. It was an excellent event and those two deserve enormous credit for pulling it together and packing the room with HR professionals and corporate recruiters. One of the highlights of the day was hearing a presentation by John Sumser of Recruiting.com talk about the differences between Boomers and Gen Y, or as he says, Gen Why. He is a phenomenal speaker and his presentation on generational challenges is the best I’ve seen. If you ever have the opportunity to hear John speak, I would highly, highly recommend it.

The slide below is taken directly from his presentation, and the slide by itself doesn’t do the topic or his perspective on it justice, but it was the most clear, concise, and accurate characterization I’ve seen of how Gen Y workers operate. His message is basically that Gen Y’s, on average, grew up in smaller families, never had to compete for resources like boomers did in bigger families, received inordinate amounts of attention as children, view technology to be as integral to their lives as anything else, and can multi-task beyond belief. To varying degrees, they need to be ’sold’ to do the work at hand and they need constant feedback and communication every step of the way. Their beliefs, views, habits, perspective on work, motivations, etc. are simply a function of the manner and times in which they were raised.

While it’s been beaten to death, the fact remains that Gen Y workers have and will continue to dramatically alter not only the nation’s workforce, but the manner in which companies manage and leverage talent and compete in the market. Companies and recruiters who view Gen Y’s defining characteristics as deeply-rooted character flaws and do little but complain about how the country is going to hell will suffer greatly. Not only will they lose enormous opportunity from leveraging an extremely talented generation of people, they will simply not be able to recruit talent and compete in the marketplace.

Tags: Gen Y Workers, Gen Y, Gen Why, Baby Boomers, Changing Labor Market, Talent Management

Scott Karp’s blog recently highlighted an excellent analysis from Compete.com on the true catalyst behind Craigslist’s success in the online classified space. Written by Stephen Bragg and entitled ‘Craigslist’s Dirty Little Secret,’ the post basically states that the largest segment of Craigslist’s traffic is generated by ‘Erotic Services’ classifieds, and that within that category, “a deeper look into the metrics reveals a real power group behind Craigslist’s impressive numbers: men seeking men.” While the data is not the least bit surprising given the fact that so many technological innovations have arisen from the porn/sex industry (VCRs, 1-900 businesses, online video, etc.), the data should cause employers to think twice about the free/low-cost employment classifieds that Craigslist sells, at least for employers that are interested in their employment branding.

In a March 31st Financial Times article ‘The Exaggerated Reports of the Death of Newspapers,’ media editor Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson cites a Zogby Poll, commissioned by Reuters and the World Editors Forum, of 435 editors and news executives as evidence that the outlook for the daily newspaper industry isn’t as bad as people think. Those would be the exact group I’d look to for an objective, honest look at what is happening in the industry – the very people who have had their heads buried in the sand for the past decade. The article goes on to report the global circulation data (up 10%) as further evidence of a healthy outlook. While those numbers are impressive, the growth is occurring mostly in under-developed nations and has little bearing on the U.S. newspaper industry. Indeed, the fact that online advertising in the U.K. recently surpassed print advertising expenditures, combined with the growing popularity of freesheets in Europe and their somewhat recent introduction in the U.S., should cause people to recognize that the storm clouds over the entire industry are not going to dissipate anytime soon.

The March employment report, released last Friday, indicates that the labor market continues to tighten despite the slump in housing. The U.S. economy created 180,000 new jobs (net) in March, January and February numbers were revised upwards, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.4%. While debates are raging about the fundamental cause(s) of the bullish numbers, the obvious fact remains that there are simply not enough workers to meet demand and, other than minor aberrations along the way, there won’t be for a long, long time. As I have said in past posts, companies are going to have to keep working harder and finding more effective ways to attract and retain their human capital.

Time to read the daily newspaper this morning: 9 minutes and 2 seconds.

Daily recommendation for the dailies: Take Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson’s advice to heart – “If newspapers want a future, they must provide something more original than just pictures of Paris Hilton.” It’s the only accurate paragraph in his entire article.

Tags: Craigslist, online classifieds, recruitment Advertising, U.S. Labor Market, Financial Times, Death of Newspapers, Jobs Report, Department of Labor, Human Capital Management, War For Talent, Talent Management

In yesterday’s post about the recent deal activity in the media and classified space, I forgot to mention another March deal. Taleo acquired JobFlash in an asset purchase worth about $3 million. The original investors in the deal, including Maveron LLC, Mosaic Venture Partners, and the Band of Angels, invested about $5.45 million in the deal and obviously got clobbered with a less than stellar exit. For every deal that one reads about in the space, whether it’s an up round or a terrific exit, there are countless other instances where past investments have failed entirely, are underwater, or the company is sold for a mediocre or even negative return. So given all the chaos and upheaval going on in the employment classified space, not to mention the larger media space, why are venture firms, corporate strategics, and private equity firms so active in investing in the category at the moment? While the answer may be be obvious to some, and I do not in any way purport to have the perfect, complete explanation, it is interesting and quite instructive to think about.

The first part of my brief, incomplete, and simplified answer (as always, I’d appreciate anyone else’s thoughts on this), is that the employment classified category is still a $10+ billion industry, depending on how you define it. No matter how high the risks are, that’s a very attractive space to be competing in. Given the sheer size of the industry, combined with the complexity and multi-faceted nature of of delivering recruitment solutions and human capital management solutions to employers of all sizes across the entire economy, there is tremendous opportunity for both success and failure. While there are certainly some clear leaders today in many areas, no one is totally dominating the playing field yet and there will be lots of winners, lots of losers, and some really attractive returns down the road. Of course, there will be some abysmal returns as well.

The second part of the answer is that, to some extent, the macro factors positively impacting the entire industry are going to create an above-average number of winners. Because of retiring baby-boomers, fundamental shifts in the labor market and the economy itself (service-based & informational-based), outsourcing, offshoring, HRO, an increasingly transient, freelance workforce, higher churn, less loyalty to employers, etc., the need for effective talent management and recruitment advertising is going to continue growing at an exponential rate for at least the next decade. So despite the maelstrom, the tide is certainly rising and will lift a lot of boats as long as they can stay afloat long enough.

And finally, the chaotic transformations taking place create enormous volatility throughout the industry. And that volatility creates opportunity in and of itself. Like certain market-neutral hedge fund managers who can make money regardless of whether the markets are up or down but require volatility to succeed, there will be companies and shareholders who benefit substantially from the chaos itself. One company’s failure constitutes success for another, as markets are, for the most part, a zero-sum phenomena. Furthermore, the volatility that creates both risk and opportunity are a prerequisite for the higher returns that certain investors are seeking, at least according to capital market theory. At a high level and over sufficient lengths of time, markets are efficient. In the shorter term and/or at a micro level, it is inefficiency that allows investors to generate significant returns for the risk they take. The challenge is to pick the specific sectors, the management teams, and the business models that are going to win. And while that is always true in investing capital into businesses, the premium placed on those elements is more critical in an industry such as ours that is being turned upside down at the moment.

Tags: Taleo, JobFlash, Media M&A, Job Boards, Media Deals, Classifieds, Investing In Media