Half of Employed Adults Seeking Work in 2020?

I read a statistic recently that scared me and gave me lots of pause for thought. “Nearly half of employed adults in the U.S. (48%) are likely to look for a new job in the next year.” This was published in the ASA Workforce Monitor survey conducted online by The Harris Poll. To put this in perspective, about half of you reading this right now, could be looking for a new job in 2020. And half of your co-workers may also be looking for a new job in 2020. That is a lot of people who may be making a job change this year.

What does this mean for recruiting?

This could mean that recruiting will be a little easier in 2020. If more people are considering a job change, it may translate to more qualified applicants for each job advertised. Wouldn’t it be great if this also reduced the time to fill open positions, and if more of the open positions could be filled with highly qualified candidates? The companies who have focused on building a positive employee culture will probably be able to maintain a higher level of employee retention as well. This is likely the all-around positive outcome we all wish for.

Quick Thoughts

In the end, this is all just speculation based upon a survey of what people think they may do in the future. And maybe knowing this is one possible future, there are things we can all do to get ahead of this in a positive way.

Written by Tiffany Appleton, Director, Accounting & Finance Division