Even though the economy seems to be improving, unemployment figures are still high. What's more, companies are having a tough time finding employees that fit their job requirements, which is quickly becoming a small business challenge, according to The New York Times.
"Companies all over are having a difficult time recruiting the kind of people they’re looking for," Robert Funk, chairman and chief executive of Express Employment Professionals, a national staffing firm based in Oklahoma City that helped some 335,000 people land jobs last year, told the news source. "We currently have 18,000 open job orders we can't fill."
According to Fox Business, a recent survey from hiring company Manpower discovered 49 percent of firms are having a tough time finding talent, which may be contributing to the stagnant unemployment rates.
One explanation for this trend may be that more professionals are offering for skilled positions, rather than unskilled jobs, which is not usually the case after a recession, the Times reported.
For instance, a web design company in New York City that has 85 employees, has 10 job openings - all of which are technical jobs, and they are looking for qualified people. The Manpower Group survey showed software and information technology skilled jobs are not the only tough positions to fill. Accounting and finance staff, drivers, mechanics, nurses and teachers are ranked among the hardest to fill, the media outlet reports.
Some companies are also having a tough time filling positions with people who have good social and relationship skills. SRC Holdings, which added 600 jobs in 2011 and is planning on hiring 400 in 2012, is still struggling with finding the right people in certain roles.
"SRC has been kind of spoiled for a while because we never had to bang rocks together to get recruits," said Keith Boatright, SRC's director of human resources, told the news source. "Now for the first time we have had to challenge our H.R. team to have a sales mentality and to develop pipelines to get the right people since it might take us interviewing 30 people before we find the one we want. The lack of qualified workers has become a definite threat to our growth strategy."