4 in 10 employers struggle to find talent: Here’s how to stay ahead

A tight labour market is prompting employers to take a new approach to talent acquisition

BY Rachel Ranosa 23 Aug. 2018

Amid Canada’s tightening labour market, businesses are under pressure to find talent with a balance of soft and hard skills. Four in 10 employers are, in fact, struggling with recruitment, a study on the country’s talent shortage showed.

Demand for mid-skilled workers is growing at jobs that don’t require a university degree – just post-secondary training, according to the 2018 ManpowerGroup survey.

“Today’s jobseekers don’t always have the skills employers need. To solve our growing skills gap, we need to take a new approach,” said Darlene Minatel, country manager at ManpowerGroup Canada.

The group outlines four strategies to solve the talent shortage:

Build your talent pipeline. Upskill potential and existing employees and invest in learning and development programs.
Buy access to external talent supplies that cannot be built in-house when urgent positions need to be filled immediately.
Borrow talent from communities of part-time, freelance, contract, or temporary workers to augment your existing workforce. Cultivate your relationships through a talent relationship management platform.
Bridge people and their future success by moving them up and into new roles.

“Employers need to buy skills in the short term, cultivate communities of talent by borrowing from external sources and help people with adjacent skills transition from one role to another,” Minatel said. “Above all, we need to build talent through upskilling and reskilling programs to develop a workforce with the skills companies and individuals need to succeed.”