Submitted by: Lindsey Reed Smith, Senior Vice President, Talent Management
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released a report titled “The Employment Situation – September 2017” breaking down the numbers and factors surrounding employment and unemployment in the U.S. at this point in time.
As anyone who’s been paying attention knows, Hurricanes Irma and Harvey caused severe damage and displacement of many people in Florida and parts of the Southeast, as well as in Texas and areas of the Gulf Coast. We felt this as a Company due to our team members and customers being affected in those areas (check out our TMX Cares efforts to help those affected by Hurricanes Irma and Harvey at https://www.tmxfinancefamily.com/tmx-cares).
This was a big contributing factor to the current unemployment rate in the nation – 4.2% — which is the lowest it’s been since 2005. This is with 33,000 positions being lost due to the hurricanes and the damage they caused to businesses and homes in affected areas. Once those rebound, we will be at less than 3% nationwide. That’s a very small active candidate pool!
What does this mean for businesses and candidates? Companies need to become more attractive to passive candidates, whether that’s making their mission more engaging, improving perks and benefits (check out our benefits, or offering a time-sensitive, quality candidate and employee experience.
How is the TMX Finance® Family of Companies responding? Not only are we offering more engagement programs such as TMX Cares events, TEAMUP Mentor program, Veteran and Campus Recruiting strategies and a high-quality onboarding experience, we are also working to train our team members to identify the kind of candidates they want now so they can be positioned for future hiring, as well as teaching how to attract passive candidates in the first place (we have a pretty great referral program as well – we love making connections!).
Want to learn more about how we’re innovating interactions with our Company across a variety of facets such as customer, candidate, and team member experiences? Check out more of the Opportunity Knocks and TMX Talks blogs!