Joy Nazzari, the founder of British proptech startup Shore, is desperately trying to hire 16 people – a combination of senior-level developers, project managers and designers. But her candidate pool is running out.
“It’s never been more difficult or more expensive to hire new people,” she says. “Still, you also have to defend who you already have because they see the bright lights — get hit on LinkedIn and hear stories from friends drawn to big pay packages.”
Nazzari is one of the employers who found it difficult to replace the wave of workers who quit at The Great Resignation, which started last year and has not stopped since. In the US, the number of workers leaving work has now surpassed pre-pandemic levels for eight straight months, according to consumer data company Statista.
In the UK it is a similar story. Sanjay Raja, UK’s chief economist at Deutsche Bank, published a report in January that showed people quitting their job in the highest rate since 2009. Large numbers are leaving the job market completely and more than 80 percent don’t want a job – the highest number on record since 1993, according to Raja’s analysis. This has left gaping holes in the workforce.
The Great Resignation has widened the gap between supply and demand for tech workers and has caused employers to resort to extreme incentives to hire as many of them as possible. In IT alone, 31 percent of employees were actively looking for a new job between July and September last year. This is the highest of any industry, according to Gartner analysis. Meanwhile, data from training firm Global Knowledge shows that 76 percent of global IT decision-makers face critical gaps in their teams. Multiply that problem by other tech roles, and it’s clear that the skills shortage is likely to worsen before it gets better.
The scrap over a shrinking talent pool is growing as companies take payout after payout to get new recruits through the door. Companies are experimenting with all kinds of welfare measures to attract new employees: Pinterest expanded its fertility benefits and parental leave in January; in December, fintech company Finder introduced five extra days on top of paid annual and sick leave entitlements; and On Purpose, a New Delhi-based communications consultancy, launched seven days of paid leave from February for adopting pets. The news is spreading quickly as employees exchange company policy notes under the hashtag #ShowUsYourLeave on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Candidates are even offered money just to appear at job interviews. Deutsche Familienversicherung, an insurtech company based in Frankfurt, says it will offer €500 to anyone it interviews, an additional €1,000 to those who make it through a second round and €5,000 more to those who complete a six-month probationary period.
It’s not just big companies doing it either: The ethical tech nonprofit Software Freedom Conservancy, which employs six people, pays interview finalists $500 each. Cactus Communications, a publishing platform for the scientific community, offers 5 percent of the annual fee for a position as a welcome bonus, and at Nazzari’s company Showhere, it’s a month’s salary upon signing an employment contract.
