The best way to conquer a skills shortage is to get ahead of it. With a looming talent deficit in the professional trades job sector, today’s TA leaders need to enlist a proactive approach to gain a competitive advantage. Research finds an anticipated—and pressing—shortage of 2.1 million skilled trade professionals by 2030. Industries likely hit the hardest include life sciences, energy, and manufacturing. 

“A perfect storm is brewing,” says Jacinta Allerston, Director, Talent Services for KellyOCG®, with several factors putting pressure on the workforce supply. 

• Skills are evolving, driven by innovation. The nature of work for many skilled trade professionals is changing. Allerston notes that electricians, field service technicians, and maintenance roles are increasingly interacting with automation systems, digital diagnostics, robotics, and other advanced technologies. As the skills needed for success evolve, job descriptions need to follow suit.   
• Demographics are changing. “Many more skilled trades professionals are entering into retirement than we’re seeing entering the early career or apprenticeship stage of the funnel,” explains Allerston. “So there’s a squeeze of talent at both ends.” According to the U.S. Department of Education, for every five retiring tradespeople in the U.S., only two join the workforce. This has several impacts across the workforce—on talent attraction, retention, development, and knowledge transfer. TA leaders should focus on early career and apprenticeship strategies, as well as upskilling, reskilling, internal mobility, and mentoring programs. 
• Demand is increasing across multiple industries. Competition for talent spans more industries than ever before. In today’s market, manufacturers looking for electricians compete with data center operators, pharmaceutical companies, and healthcare companies for the same type of technical talent. Allerston advises leveraging market intelligence for a better understanding of where talent sits in adjacent sectors. 
• Talent pipelines are too narrow. “Organizations are constraining their talent pools without intending to,” says Allerston. In this talent squeeze, requirements, industry expertise, and certain preferences need to be rethought and redesigned to broaden reach. A skills-based approach to hiring can improve success when supply and demand are at odds. 

Actions to Take 

With skilled trade professionals in high demand, a proactive approach to recruiting is essential for building a robust talent pipeline. Leveraging technology, data insights, and outside expertise often makes the difference in a successful strategy. 

Technology. “Today’s skills for trade roles are an evolving target,” says Allerston. AI and predictive analytics can now help forecast the longevity of a skill or a specific occupation in certain markets. This insight helps support the hiring process as well as workforce planning in the long run. 

Data insights. An understanding of external market data provides a competitive advantage in decision-making. Data and analytics can guide recruiting strategy by informing job requirements, providing visibility into commuting and relocation patterns, and offering background for suitable facility locations. 

Likewise, analytics tools can map specific profiles of competitors and provide insight for expanding sourcing channels. Profiles can be developed from information around compensation data, brand recognition, employee brand position, office locations, and more. Allerston recommends establishing visibility into companies in adjacent sectors as well as direct competitors. 

Data around the hiring process itself can be a gamechanger. Advanced technologies, like the Kelly Sevayo® workforce technology platform, can pinpoint many factors, including candidate sentiment, important hiring metrics like time to hire and time to productivity, reasons driving open requisitions, and predictive analytics for future hiring patterns. 

Expertise. Considering the many challenges ahead for hiring skilled trade professionals, having a partnership in place can be the right solution for many TA teams. “Bringing in outside expertise and understanding can really help with benchmarking certain expectations,” says Allerston. “This can be around the number of candidates coming from direct sourcing activity, the amount of reliance on different advertising channels, and having an understanding of the broader macro labor markets in a given geography.”  

Allerston recalls working with an organization that needed a shift in how they were recruiting plant and site leaders. Their strategy was to hire in big bursts—collecting a large volume of applications at once when the need was pressing, which became unsustainable. Aided by data and insights, the company now takes an always-on approach, which provides access to a continuous pool of candidates. 

Adjusting to a New Normal  

The challenges of hiring skilled trades talent are unlikely to go away, as rapid innovation continually spurs demand for new skills with a limited supply of workers. As a result, the strategies for TA success in this environment are becoming core priorities for successful organizations. Committing to the practices, and having the support to execute them, is now a priority that smart companies are no longer postponing. The time to step up is now.