I occasionally see news articles about how many unfilled jobs there are. It seems to me that the numbers might be misleading, because there is a lot of duplication. If a company advertises the same position on their own site, Monster, and Careerbuilder, is that counted by these reports as one opening, or three?
I’ve also seen on some job boards, the same opening will also be posted in multiple categories, for example, the same ad for a car salesman position being listed twice, once under sales, and once under automotive. Is that counted twice?
A good point and I don’t know the answer. Just an anecdote. When I got my PhD in 1962, there were jobs galore for mathematicians. I found one instantly. My advisor contacted someone he knew, I went for an interview and was offered a 2 year instructorship on the spot. Some places were desperate for hires, just to man the classrooms. Two years later, unsolicited job offers came to my mailbox and I chose one. The number of PhD’s in mathematics per year doubled and more. Suddenly, by 1970, it all turned around and there was a glut of mathematicians that has remained ever since. Five years earlier, the demand seemed infinite; suddenly the supply was.
So yes, it can be a relatively small number of jobs chasing just a slightly smaller number of qualified people and then turn on a dime from a dire shortage into a glut. I understand that this sort of thing has happened multiple times in engineering.
Another thing about this shortage is that companies are turning down perfectly qualified applicants who have even a minute amount of marijuana in their blood. Because their insurance companies insist on it. If I were an insurance company, I would be more concerned with nicotine.
I believe it’s their liability insurance companies that are more worried about marijuana than nicotine. I agree with you that health insurance companies are probably more concerned with nicotine.
Just a few days ago CNN had a short piece about a shop owner that has a hard time filling jobs because 40 percent of her applicants were failing blood tests. As she put it “We have 40-ton cranes here. I can’t have workers showing up under the influence.”
Damn good thing there’s not a hangover-o-meter or she’d have no employees at all.