Dive Brief:

• Nearly half of employed adults in the U.S. are likely to look for a new job in the next year, according to survey results from the American Staffing Association (ASA). ​Many also are planning to switch careers or industries.
• Conducted by Harris Poll for the ASA, the survey found that 44% of respondents worry about never finding their ideal job, especially those in the office-administrative, industrial and professional-managerial industry sectors. Among students in the survey, 69% also worry about not landing the right job.
• "The U.S. is immersed in the tightest labor market in modern history with millions of unfilled openings across geographies and industries," Richard Wahlquist, ASA president and CEO, said in a media release.  "It's a job seeker's market — a reality lost on many people who, as the ASA Workforce Monitor shows, sadly lack optimism about their prospects of finding a perfect position."

Dive Insight:

Earlier surveys revealed an even bleaker turnover dilemma for U.S. employers than the ASA’s findings; 2018 data from the digital marketing firm Adtaxi found that 52% of American working adults planned to job hunt in 2019, and that more than half who did would land a new job within a year. 

Notably, the survey revealed that employees are generally pessimistic about their job prospects despite the market working in their favor. The recruiting experience may have something to do with it: A recent Randstad Sourceright study found while talent leaders believed their candidate experience was excellent or very good, candidates’ feedback disagreed, with 84% saying their experience was negative. To fix this imbalance, Randstad suggested employers balance the human touch with technology to make the experience more personal and capture diverse perspectives to make the experience more inclusive, among other suggestions.

Employers also are struggling to compete for workers who are more savvy about looking for the right job at the right company than ever before. Today’s job hunters are closely examining companies’ reputations and their standing with current employees on rating sites — and passing on organizations that don’t make the grade. Experts advise employers to monitor their online ratings regularly and make whatever cultural changes are necessary to compete for talent. In fact, a majority of job hunters who discovered that a companies’ employees were over-loaded with work, burned-out and generally unhappy would reject a job offer from that company, a survey from Hibob revealed earlier this year; salary mattered less to applicants in those situations.