The State of High-volume and Hourly Hiring 2023

Essential Strategies for Essential Workers

In early June 2023, recruiters found themselves in a paradoxical situation. The technology industry faces layoffs, while the hospitality and healthcare sectors suffer due to labor shortages. Rising unemployment discontent contrasts with robust job growth. Traditional recruiters are losing their jobs, yet high-volume recruitment is growing. This report highlights the paradoxes and contradictions in talent acquisition (TA) that is both fascinating and unsettling at the same time.
 

Despite 24,000 layoffs in employment services, the U.S. economy added a remarkable 339,000 jobs in May, creating a TA paradox. High-volume and hourly hiring exist in an alternate reality, where time-to-hire and average tenure are measured in hours or days. Competitive advantage is determined by factors such as hourly wages and benefits like healthcare and tuition subsidies. This hiring approach differs from salaried recruitment, where specialized skills are assumed to be crucial.

While recruiters of white-collar positions struggle to find work in a tight job market, those managing high-volume and hourly recruitment experience business prosperity. Hourly worker demand is historically steadier and less volatile than white-collar recruiting, indicating a potential future for recruitment. The future of hiring might resemble the standardized, automated, scalable, and self-sustainable methods used in hiring hourly workers today.

Research indicates that this is an opportune time for high-volume hiring, particularly in retail, hospitality, and healthcare, as employer demand outpaces the shrinking hourly workforce. The report provides insights into the state of high-volume and hourly hiring based on a global survey of HR practitioners and hiring leaders. It explores the challenges faced when hiring hourly talent and uncovers opportunities in the evolving world of work.

By leveraging the knowledge and expertise of this global cohort, the report aims to shed light on the actual state of high-volume and hourly hiring, addressing the underserved market compared to corporate TA. It presents an opportunity for reimagining and redefining how hiring functions, and TA, can thrive.

Given below are the key findings from the report:

Usage Rates of High-volume Hiring

Finding: The need for high-volume hiring isn’t going away any time soon

Of the organizations that are engaged in high-volume recruitment at present, in the past or are planning to do so in the future, the vast majority (89%) plan to engage in high-volume recruitment over the next two years. Of these, more than 6 in 10 plan to rely on in-house resources and a quarter plan to outsource at least part of the task.

Organizations looking to manage this process in-house must have efficient and scalable processes to handle the large volume of applicants, resumes and interview schedules. This requires the right tools and strategies to be in place, backed by careful planning to make
sure the right candidates are selected and hired efficiently.

Finding: Over two-fifths of organizations planning to engage in high-volume recruitment over the next two years expect an increase in the TA budget

We asked respondents who expect to engage in high-volume recruitment over the next two years if the process is supported by the organizational budget. In two-fifths of organizations, there is an expected increase in the TA budget, with about a tenth expecting a high increase (11%) and a third expecting a small increase (32%). About a third (34%) expect the budget to remain the same.

HR professionals striving to win top leadership buy-in to increase TA budget must focus on making a business case on how important recruiting is to the overall success of the organizations, how successful the recruitment strategy has been in the past few years, the volume of applicants needed, and the associated costs of leaving positions unfilled. This requires a comprehensive understanding of recruitment metrics and analytics to back the claims with numbers.

Outsourcing High-volume Hiring

Finding: Almost half of organizations engaged in high-volume recruitment at present or past have outsourced some part of the recruitment to one or more other entities

To what degree do organizations outsource high-volume recruiting? We found that the number of organizations that handle high-volume recruitment internally or outsource it to staffing or recruitment process outsourcing firms are almost split in half. Just over half (54%) of respondents say they never outsource high-volume recruitment and just under half (46%) say they outsource some part of high-volume recruitment sometimes (39%) or always (7%).

Finding: Organizations that outsource high-volume recruitment have various choices of partners

What kind of external agencies, services or partners do the organizations that outsource high-volume recruitment utilize? More than 6 in 10 use staffing agencies for high-volume recruitment. Half (53%) use job boards (e.g., Indeed), and two-fifths rely on temp agencies and recruitment process outsourcing organizations.

There are some key differences between these agencies and services. Staffing agencies often act as a finder—they source, pre-screen and introduce the candidate to the hiring managers. A recruitment process outsourcing organization (RPO), on the other hand, acts as a recruitment expert to handle the complete or specific part of recruitment based on the company’s requirements. RPOs generally handle identifying, sourcing, screening, shortlisting, interviewing, and onboarding candidates for jobs.

Job boards offer organizations the ability to advertise jobs, but the hiring process is often handled by the organization.

What determines the choice of these partners and agencies? Common factors include the roles for which hiring needs to be done, the degree of involvement the organization wants in the recruitment process, and the budget available for high-volume recruitment.

The Effectiveness of High-volume Hiring

Finding: Just 23% strongly agree their organization is effective at high-volume recruitment

How effectively do organizations source and onboard candidates in the high-volume recruitment process? That depends on how we interpret the data. On one hand, two-thirds of respondents either strongly agree or agree that their organization is effective at high-volume recruitment. On the other hand, 23% strongly agree with this assertion, indicating there’s considerable room for improvement in most organizations.