It seems if you turn on the news lately, you’ll hear more and more about a labour shortage, an excess of jobs, tech companies having to make sweeping cuts to their organizations… It’s not always a positive picture painted. So: what’s the status of hiring and retention in the agribusiness space?
Recently, AgCareers.com completed their overlook of the 2022 year to see what the trends were in the U.S. and Canada in terms of hiring, availability of jobs and retention. What have they noticed? A few trending shifts:
“Employers posted over 62,000 jobs on AgCareers.com in 2022, an increase of 12%,” the site said in a Linkedin post about the report. “When we examined all jobs, ‘Chemical, Pesticide and Fertilizer,’ was the leading industry sector and ‘Sales/Retail’ was the top career type. Looking at volume of jobs and growth, ‘Business Development/Strategic Management,’ ‘Transportation/ Truck Driver,’ and ‘Researcher/Research and Development’ were trending careers.”
But, more noticeably, the trend of remote work continues to increase. AgCareers reports that the number of employers posting positions in a remote/work-from-home setting increased over 300% from 2020 to 2022 due to the pandemic impact. However, the growth trend continues to climb — this year, remote work increased 34%.
In addition, not only are more jobs being posted as remote work friendly, but candidates continue to look for remote opportunities.
“When we examine job seekers’ keyword searches on www.AgCareers.com, ‘remote’ took over the top spot in 2022, a direct response to the pandemic’s influence on work-from-home availability, needs and job seeker expectations,” AgCareers reported. “Worldwide, there were over 10,000 searches for ‘remote’ on AgCareers.com, up 40% from 2021. Employers that can offer a virtual office environment for some or all positions benefit by promoting this in the job announcement.”
For those positions that need to be in-person, AgCareers suggests emphasizing the benefits of onsite collaborative teamwork supplemented with flexibility.
The key takeaways from the U.S. were:
- Retention practices continue to be a top priority. Companies report regular pay increases for current employees and flexible work schedules.
- Flexible work schedules are a top priority, as 55% of employees polled prefer a hybrid schedule. It continues to be a way for employers to attract and retain talent.
- Hourly roles are and continue to be the most difficult to fill.
- There’s an increase in graduate recruitment — 68.35% of companies plan to do more graduate recruitment.
Some key findings in Canada are:
- There’s an outlook for growth. Overall, 55.91% of companies anticipate an increase in the size of their workforce.
- The labour market continues to intensify and pose challenges for employers. Companies surveyed noted that finding applicants with the required skill was the top reason for their recruiting difficulties.
- Sales positions are in demand and, like in previous years, continue to be the most difficult type of role to fill. Sales roles are reported as the top position that companies hope to fill with new graduates.
- Companies are looking to improve company culture. Canadian companies across the agribusiness sector noted various ways to improve their company culture by creating paths for employees to develop and sharpen skills.
