Employers struggle to find qualified job candidates

Despite the economic downturn, the annual Talent Shortage Survey from Manpower Inc. shows talent shortages continue. The company surveyed nearly 39,000 employers across 33 countries and territories in the first quarter of 2009 to determine the extent to which talent shortages are impacting today’s labor markets.

The survey found 30 percent of employers worldwide are struggling to find qualified job candidates especially skilled trades people, sales representatives and technicians. The 10 hardest jobs to fill, as reported by U.S. employers in 2009, are:

• Engineers
• Nurses
• Skilled/manual trades
• Teachers
• Sales representatives
• Technicians
• Drivers
• Information technology staff
• Laborers
• Machinist/machine operators

Even with unemployment at or near record levels in many communities, many employers are having difficulty finding individuals with the right combination of job-specific skills, experience, training and soft skills.

"In the four years we have performed this research, the same positions appear on the list again and again," said Jonas Prising, Manpower's president of the Americas. "Despite the current economic instability and high unemployment, there are still skills that the U.S. workforce seems to lack."