Nearly nine in 10 (89%) employers said recruiting and hiring will be either "somewhat" or "very" challenging in 2022—making the tight labor market and Great Resignation even more challenging for the recovering U.S. economy. Despite these concerns, approximately two-thirds (69%) of employers expect their workforces to grow in 2022.

The new data - which represents a 23% jump in recruiting and hiring concerns, compared with last year - comes from XpertHR's Survey of HR Challenges for 2022 of 351 U.S. employers. The report found that employee retention (79%), workforce planning (67%) and vaccine mandates (66%) were also among the most challenging issues facing the HR function in the new year.

"While employers foresee challenges recruiting talent, a majority also anticipate growing their workforce, making the labor shortage even more of an acute pain point," explained Amanda Czepiel, Head of Content at XpertHR.

To counter these challenges, employers:

• Plan to increase salaries and hourly wages for incoming workers (60%), while 66% intend to increase salaries and hourly wages for existing employees;
• Expect to increase flexible work options, such as hybrid, fully remote or flexible hours for new hires (48%) and existing staff (44%);
• Will increase advertising around job vacancies (44%).

Employee retention tactics also include opportunities to develop employees' careers within their roles (e.g., certifications, trainings) and increasing employee engagement initiatives, both of which were cited by 53% of respondents.

"These recruitment and retention efforts are natural next steps and are consistent with what we've seen from employers eager to overcome the labor shortage," Czepiel explained. She cited XpertHR's Salary Budget Survey 2022, released in Nov. 2021, which projected a median salary budget increase of 3.0% across all three employee groups covered by the survey: exempt; nonexempt; and officers/executives. In that survey, nearly eight in 10 (79%) organizations cited recruitment/retention as an upward pressure on total salary budgets for the coming year.

XpertHR's Survey of HR Challenges for 2022 was conducted from Oct. 5-29, 2021. The survey included responses from 351 U.S. employers of various industries and workforce sizes, representing over 860,000 workers. The survey report explores various HR challenges for 2022, including methods organizations are planning to use to fill vacancies, how employers are planning to increase retention, where employers will require fully remote employees to live, politics in the workplace, and more.

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